Osiel Cárdenas
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Osiel Cardenas, a suspected leader of the Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo), was arrested on March 14, 2003 in Matamoros, Mexico. He was a mechanic in Matamoros, where he also was selling cocaine, and became a "madrina" -an informant- for the Policía Judicial Federal, he entered the Gulf's Cartel by helping Chava Gomez -then the capo-, he later took control by killing him. He stayed in control by telling his comrades "el que se crea bien verga lo mato a la chingada", which roughly means "Whoever believes that he is tough, I'll fucking kill him" His comrades were loyal to him up to the day he was captured in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. He gained more attention from the United States, when in 1999, in Matamoros, Mexico, he allegedly threatened to kill two U.S. federal agents - one from the FBI and the other from the Drug Enforcement Admninistration. Cardenas and more than a dozen of his men surrounded the agents' car near downtown Matamoros, Mexico. After a tense standoff, the agents talked their way out of being killed by reminding Cardenas that the U.S. would hunt him for the rest of his life.
Cardenas was captured by the Mexican Army in a shootout that involved machine guns, reports of grenades and rocket-launchers in the battle have been stated in local newspaper El Bravo. He formed the "Los Zetas" or "Z's", his hit team, by hiring the ex- army troopers. He was known as a dangerous man and was believed to have directed the Cartel from La Palma, México's top security prison, where he was locked up before being extradited to the United States on January 20, 2007. He is currently awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas.
