Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén was sent back to Mexico after serving a US sentence and was quickly rearrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.
There had been nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who was once the feared leader Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico before being arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.
The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed on its social media accounts on Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in US custody, with most of his 25 years in prison in the US. He is a Mexican national, so he has probably been deported.
“The successful removal of Osiel Cardenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” Samuel Olson, director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Chicago Field Office, said in a statement.
A Mexican federal official who was not authorized to be named said Cárdenas Guillén was immediately taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money laundering charges.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Disclosure via REUTERS
The official said Cárdenas Guillén was being held in the country’s most secure Altiplano prison, just west of Mexico City.
Homeland Security Investigations posted photos of a paunchy, balding, bespectacled Cárdenas Guillén being escorted by two officers in helmets and flak jackets, and the creature walking across a border bridge.
The image contrasts with the drug lord’s fearsome reputation for violence in Mexico.
Nicknamed “El Mata Amigos” (“Friend Killer”), he recruited former Mexican special forces soldiers to form his personal guard. The former head of the Gulf Cartel was known for his brutality. He created the most bloodthirsty gang of assassins Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, who routinely slaughtered migrants and innocent people.
The 57-year-old resident of the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars through the Gulf Cartel, based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.
After his arrest in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, he was extradited to the United States in 2007, where he was sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $50 million.
At the time, the Justice Department alleged that Cardenas Guillen threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy working as an undercover ICE agent for refusing to deliver nearly 2,000 pounds of marijuana.
