The Guadalajara Cartel was a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 drug cartel

Drug cartel

Drug cartels are criminal organizations developed with the primary purpose of promoting and controlling drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the largest trafficking...

 which was formed in the 1980s by Rafael Caro Quintero

Rafael Caro Quintero

Rafael Caro Quintero is an incarcerated Mexican drug lord born in La Noria, Badiraguato, Sinaloa. Quintero was a co-founder, with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, of the Guadalajara Cartel and Sonora Cartel. Upon of the cartels' disintegration, its leaders were incorporated mostly into the Tijuana...

, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo is a convicted Mexican drug lord known as "El Padrino" who in the 1980s formed the Guadalajara Cartel and became the first drug czar in Mexico to control all illegal drug traffic in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico-U.S.A...

 and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo

Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo

Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo is a former Mexican narcotics trafficker, operating as leader of the Guadalajara Cartel alongside Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Rafael Caro Quintero...

 in order to ship heroin and marijuana to the United States. Among the first of the Mexican drug trafficking groups to work with the Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

n cocaine

Cocaine

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 mafias, the Guadalajara cartel prospered from the cocaine

Cocaine

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 trade.

After the arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Félix Gallardo kept a low profile and in 1987 he moved with his family Guadalajara

Guadalajara

Guadalajara may refer to:In Mexico:*Guadalajara, Jalisco, the capital of the state of Jalisco and second largest city in Mexico**Guadalajara Metropolitan Area*University of Guadalajara, a public university in Guadalajara, Jalisco...

 city. "The Godfather" 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. In a way, he was privatizing the Mexican drug business while sending it back underground, to be run by bosses who were less well known or not yet known by the DEA. Félix Gallardo "The Godfather" convened the nation's top drug narcos at a house in the resort of Acapulco where he designated the plazas or territories. The Tijuana route would go to the Arellano Felix brothers

Tijuana Cartel

The Tijuana Cartel is a Mexican drug cartel based in Tijuana. The cartel has been described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico"...

. The Ciudad Juárez route

Juárez Cartel

The Juárez Cartel , also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas...

 would go to the Carrillo Fuentes family

Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Amado Carrillo Fuentes , was a Mexican drug lord who seized control of the Juárez Cartel after assassinating his boss Rafael Aguilar Guajardo. Amado Carrillo became known as "El Señor de Los Cielos" because of the large fleet of jets he used to transport drugs...

. Miguel Caro Quintero

Miguel Caro Quintero

Miguel Angel Caro Quintero was born in La Noria, Badiraguato Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1963. Caro Quintero is believed to have been one of the leaders of the now extinct Sonora Cartel.-Sonora Cartel:...

 would run the Sonora corridor

Sonora Cartel

The Sonora Cartel, also called the Caro-Quintero Organization, was a Mexico based criminal cartel. Upon of the cartel's disintegration, its leaders were incorporated into the Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel....

. The control of the Matamoros, Tamaulipas

Matamoros, Tamaulipas

Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern part of Tamaulipas, in the country of Mexico. It is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas, in the United States. Matamoros is the second largest and second...

 corridor - then becoming the Gulf Cartel

Gulf Cartel

The Gulf Cartel is one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico, and perhaps the oldest organized crime group in the country...

- would be left undisturbed to Juan García Abrego

Juan García Abrego

Juan García Ábrego was a Mexican drug lord who started out his criminal career under the tutelage of his uncle Juan Nepomuceno Guerra, who is reported to be the former head of a criminal dynasty along the U.S.-Mexico border now called the Gulf Cartel....

. Meanwhile, Joaquín Guzmán Loera and Ismael Zambada García

Ismael Zambada García

Ismael Zambada García , also known as El Mayo Zambada, is a Mexican drug lord and one of the two Sinaloa cartel leaders...

 would take over Pacific coast operations, becoming the Sinaloa Cartel

Sinaloa Cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel is the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico and considered by the United States Intelligence Community as "the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world." The Sinaloa Cartel is based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, but also operates in the Mexican states of Baja...

. Guzmán and Zambada brought veteran Héctor Luis Palma Salazar

Héctor Luis Palma Salazar

Héctor Luis Palma Salazar was a Mexican drug trafficker and former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán .- Biography :...

 back into the fold. Félix Gallardo still planned to oversee national operations, he had the contacts so he was still the top man, but he would no longer control all details of the business; he was arrested on April 8, 1989.

According to Peter Dale Scott

Peter Dale Scott

Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian born, former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet....

, the Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking network in the early 1980s, prospered largely because it enjoyed the protection of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad

Dirección Federal de Seguridad

The Dirección Federal de Seguridad was a Mexican intelligence agency. Created in 1947 under Miguel Alemán Valdés with "the duty of preserving the internal stability of Mexico against all forms subversion and terrorist threats", it was merged into the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional ...

, under its chief Miguel Nassar Haro, a CIA asset."

External links

• Methamphetamine Situation in the United States: Production and Trafficking. U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration