Notorious drug lord Osiel Cardenas Guillén was sent back to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly rearrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.
There was nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the feared Gulf Cartel in northeastern Mexico before being arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed on its social media accounts Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after 14 years in U.S. custody, the majority of his 25-year U.S. prison sentence. Since he is a Mexican citizen, he was probably deported.
“The successful deportation of Osiel Cardenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” Samuel Olson, Chicago Field Office chief of Enforcement and Removal Operations, said in a statement opinion.
A Mexican federal official, who declined to be named, said Cárdenas Guillén was immediately taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money laundering charges.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Handout via REUTERS
The official said Cárdenas Guillén was being held at the country’s highest maximum-security prison, Altiplano, west of Mexico City.
Homeland Security Investigations released photos of a chubby, bald, bespectacled Cárdenas Guillén being escorted across a border bridge by two officers wearing helmets and body armor.
The image contrasts with the fearsome reputation of the drug lord who perpetrates 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 killer gang Mexico has ever seen, the Zetas, which routinely slaughtered migrants and innocent people.
The 57-year-old, who is from the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, transported 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 staying Sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2010 and ordered to pay $50 million.
At that time the Ministry of Justice allegedly that Cardenas Guillen had threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy who was working as an undercover ICE agent because he refused to deliver nearly 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.
