miguel angel felix gallardo was in no
sense the sole head of power of the
guadalajara cartel at its peak
yet he was the only one who was
recognized as el jefe de los jefes or el
patrino or the godfather
if pablo escobar was the pioneer of
understanding the commercial power of
coke and how to move markets around
narcotics felix gallardo was the
forerunner to turn drug trafficking into
a full-blown industry
no wonder some consider gallardo the
bill gates of drug traffickers
welcome to nutty history and today let's
look at the untold story of the kingpin
of mexico felix gallardo the godfather
felix gallardo may have had humble
beginnings but by the 1980s he was one
of the richest men alive by the advent
of the 80s gallardo and his partners had
established a monopoly on mexico's drug
system
they were producing about eight billion
dollars worth of product annually and
the 1344-acre rancho buffalo marijuana
plantation was the jewel of gallardo's
crown
as if that wasn't enough gallardo's
hunger for success led him to colombia
where he shook hands with both cali and
medellin cartels to move their colombian
snow to tijuana
such was his influence that both the
rodriguez orwella brothers and escobar
agreed to give him a 50 cut of all the
products he could move for them
gallardo had created what could be
defined as the first great narcos
corporation in mexico that was dealing
primarily in distribution and not
production
like sicily's costa nostra in the early
80s the guadalajara cartel had become
the umbrella cartel for all other narcos
organizations of mexico gallardo
quintero and carrillo were pulling five
billion dollars every year exclusively
by moving colombian products
interestingly enough they did it all
without getting too much attention from
the dea
gallardo was paying the right people and
his ring of corruption was strong enough
to keep him and his operation safe from
american persecution but everything
changed in 1984
enrique camarena a dea agent was leading
operation patrino to monitor and catch
the members of the guadalajara cartel
after investigating deep ties between
the guadalajara cartel and mexican
authorities for two years from the
sidelines kiki kamarena took a very bold
step he infiltrated a cartel and he
found his way to the cartel owned
plantations in zacatecas
soon after mexican soldiers with
helicopter support destroyed a 1 000
hectare marijuana plantation known as
rancho buffalo in chihuahua mexico
the authorities reportedly burned more
than 10 000 tons of marijuana totaling
the loss of around 160 million dollars
the attack on this plantation was a
wake-up call for the guadalajara cartel
as this was their most fortified
property backed and protected by mexican
dfs intelligence gallardo knew that
camarena's actions were unraveling the
threads of the network that he had
carefully weaved over the years and so
it was concluded that he must be stopped
on february 7 1985 jalisco police
officers on the cartel's payroll
abducted kiki kamarena from the u.s
consulate on felix gallardo's orders
this was the biggest mistake that
gallardo ever made in his entire narcos
career he would pay for this by
helplessly watching his entire empire
crumble down before his eyes
until kiki kamina's death hardly anybody
cared who felix gallardo and his
partners were even the dea wasn't
actively pursuing him but kiki
camarena's murder forced gallardo to
come out of the shadows and the dea made
him run for his life
gallardo was born on a ranch in
beiavista near kuliakan sinaloa he lived
his childhood in poverty and his family
struggled for a general lack of
resources maybe that's why the cartel
appeared to him as a ticket out of
poverty and a way to attain power
a student of business and college
gallardo later abandoned the thought of
a commercial career as he decided to
focus on becoming a police officer
after enrolling to be a cop felix
gallardo was posted to the judicial
police in sinaloa gayatri's department
was infamous for being corrupt he was
desperate to make money and find
stability following a childhood of
destitution therefore gallardo turned to
narcos
in a very short time his posting changed
to the protection of the state
government house his efficiency loyalty
and discipline towards his job earned
him another promotion in the trust of
leopoldo sanchez celis
sanchez former governor of sinaloa hired
gallardo as a bodyguard to protect his
family the employment over time
converted into friendship and celise and
gallardo's families got closer sanchez
was the guest of honor at gallardo's
wedding and gallardo and his wife later
became godparents to sanchez's son
rodolfo at his wedding through sanchez
gallardo became acquainted with the
political class of sinaloa and this
qualification attracted pedro avilas
perez to offer gallardo employment pedro
aviles or don pedro was the head of the
sinaloa cartel and a mentor to gallardo
soon to be partners rafael carlo
quintero and ernesto fonseca carrillo
also known as the mountain lion avilas
was a first generation marijuana
smuggler and a pioneer that used
aircraft to smuggle weed across american
borders
the idea of moving the marijuana
production to guadalajara was in fact
don pedro's brainchild but instead of
handling the details of moving to
guadalajara himself he asked quintero
and carrillo to manage it for him
carrillo and quintero had other plans
however as they conspired with gallardo
against aviles and as a result don pedro
was killed in a shootout conducted under
operation condor in 1978
after operation condor destroyed poppy
production in mexico the stage was set
for quintero gallardo and carrillo aka
daniel to assemble all the broken
factions of drug traffickers in mexico
to revolutionize drug trafficking into a
new generation
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gallardo and his partners modernized
industrialized and commercialized
international narcotraffic in a way that
their established routes are used even
today
it all started at a ground level as
gallardo chose diplomacy instead of
violence to turn potential enemies and
rivals into allies the newly formed
guadalajara cartel was an assembly of
heavyweights like danetto raphael carlo
quintero manuel salcido uzueta juan jose
quintero payan pablo acosta velario and
juan jose esparagosa moreno aka el azul
all of them agreed to work alongside
gallardo as he pulled off the near
impossible task of convincing them to
set their egos aside and cooperate
major marijuana plantations began to
spring up beginning in the early 1980s
earlier plantations were usually located
in remote mountain areas where they were
hard to spot and irrigation did not
require drilling wells
but yields were relatively low quality
varied and transportation was expensive
and because of that everything was
tilting towards falling apart at any
given moment
however gallardo took a big risk in
trusting quintero who was in charge of
these plantations eventually it did pay
off as quintero introduced santa mias
the seedless variant of marijuana it
turned a fortune to the guadalajara
cartel overnight quintero realized that
cheap mexican labor could be used to
grow since mia on a grand scale
he and da neto supervised the
cultivation of thousands of acres of the
irrigated desert using commercial
agricultural techniques transforming
marijuana from common weed to the smoke
of connoisseurs
meanwhile gallardo turned his focus on
colombia and through honduran drug
dealer juan ramon mata baesteros he
found a connection with colombian drug
dealer gonzalo rodriguez cacha
gatcha aka el mexicano was desperate at
that time to find a mover for his
colombian product after his mexican
contact was arrested
and just like that the guadalajara
cartel got their first contract from a
medellin cartel's drug lord
from his dealings with gacha gallardo
also learned how colombian cartels
passed the drug in small planes the pact
with gotcha consolidated the cartel's
expansion of operations and greatly
increased its profits to the point of
being compared to the medellin cartel in
the following years the business of
felix gallardo continued to grow and
became impossible for the dea to ignore
soon the dea had several agents based in
mexico who carefully followed the
cartel's movements especially its bosses
who were included in the archives of the
agency in 1979
by the 1980s felix gallardo was one of
the most wanted men without really being
persecuted since he moved easily in
mexico he made appearances in
celebrations and events as a prominent
businessman who owned numerous
restaurants and clubs gallardo was
untouchable
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the dea and the cia were keeping close
tabs on gallardo but he seemed to be too
good for them
american mexican relations were not the
best and gallardo had laid the
foundation for a system of corruption
and conviviality with the mexican state
this protected the mutual interests of
both sides on the principle of pax
mafiosa or the mafia's peace
the system was working with the cartel
it guaranteed peaceful operation as
corrupted officials helped with the
challenges from the rival smaller
syndicates
they started to streamline a money
laundering operation into the supposedly
legal economy north and south of the
border a system that gallardo's
successors el chapo and el mayo would
perfect in later years
but gallardo and his partners forgot
that they were untouchable not immune to
maintain their untouchability they had
to respect the fact that american agents
working on mexican soil were untouchable
as well
so when enrique kikicamerena was found
dead
all bets were off all of a sudden
the dea found camareno's remains badly
beaten and 70 miles outside of
guadalajara mexico his skull jaw nose
cheekbones and windpipe were crushed his
ribs were broken and a hole was drilled
into his head
to this day gallardo denies his
involvement in the murder of geeky
gamarena gallardo was known for his
peaceful diplomatic ways and he was
shrewd enough to know that killing dea
agents was bad for business
however kiki kamarena was dead and it
happened because gallardo ordered his
abduction
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brought the full wrath of the dea down
on the guadalajara cartel
u.s authorities commenced a historic
manhunt and several men behind his death
were pursued
in no time carlo quintero and don nieto
were apprehended in april 1985 losing
allies on all fronts gallardo went
underground and maintained a low profile
until 1987 when he moved back to
guadalajara city with his family
gallardo then decided to divide up the
trade he controlled as it would be more
efficient and less likely to be brought
down in one law enforcement swoop
this was basically a privatization of
the business to keep trafficking drugs
under the radar
different drug lords were given a
certain region where they could traffic
drugs in the us and tax smugglers that
wished to move merchandise on their turf
the tijuana route would go to his
nephews the argeno felix brothers dc
without juarez route would go to the
carrillo fuentes family headed by the
nephew of fonseca carrillo amaro
carrillo miguel carro quintero would run
the sonora corridor but despite all his
efforts to slip back into the shadows
gallardo chief of chiefs was captured in
april 1989. after the capture he spent
more than two decades in prison without
a conviction in 2017 he was sentenced to
37 years in prison for the murder of
kiki kamarena ascendant he is still
serving in puento grande
gallardo stand by his belief of him
being an honest innocent man
tell us in the comments if you agree
with him and who should we cover next in
our untold story of narcols as always
thanks for watching nutty history
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