Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo
| Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 8, 1946 Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Other names | El Padrino (The Godfather) |
| Occupation | Drug lord |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Conviction(s) | Drug trafficking, murder |
| Partner(s) | Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero |
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (born on January 8, 1946), commonly referred to by his alias El Padrino ("The Godfather"), is a convicted Mexican drug lord who formed the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s, and controlled almost all of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border.
Ultimately, Gallardo was arrested for the murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena, who was tortured to death on one of Gallardo's ranches. He is now serving a 40-year sentence in the maximum security prison known as Altiplano.
Born on a ranch in Bellavista on the outskirts of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Félix Gallardo first graduated high school and studied business in college. However he then took a job as a Mexican Federal Judicial Police agent. He worked as a family bodyguard for the governor of Sinaloa state Leopoldo Sanchez Celis, whose political connections Gallardo used to help build his drug trafficking organization. Gallardo was also the godfather of Celis' son Rodolfo.
In the early 1980s, drug interdiction efforts increased around Florida, which was then the major shipping destination for illegal drug traffickers. As a result, the Colombian cartels began to utilize Mexico as their primary transhipment point. Juan Matta-Ballesteros was Gallardo's primary connection to the Colombian cartels. Matta-Ballesteros had originally introduced Gallardo's predecessor, Alberto Sicilia-Falcon to Santiago Ocampo of the Cali Cartel, the head of one of the largest U.S. cocaine smuggling rings. Rather than taking cash payments for their services, the smugglers in the Guadalajara cartel took a 50% cut of the cocaine they transported from Colombia. This was extremely profitable for them, with some estimating that the trafficking network operated by Felix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and Caro Quintero was pulling in $5 billion annually.
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