The Gulf Cartel (CDG), headed by drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, alias “El Mata Amigos,” is now territorially reduced and internally divided between criminal cells that are violently confronting each other in Tamaulipas.
Following the arrest of the Tamaulipas native in 2003 in his native Matamoros and, especially, after his extradition to the United States in 2007, drug trafficking and other illegal activities in the northeast of the country have experienced a constant internal war, which has been going on for more than a decade.
Since last Friday, Cárdenas, who controlled the CDG in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was released from a U.S. prison after serving his sentence. He also remained in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while it is decided whether he remains in the United States as a protected witness or is deported to Mexico, where he faces arrest warrants for crimes against public health and organized crime.
The most serious fracture of the CDG occurred in 2009, when the Zetas, the violent armed wing of the CDG that Cárdenas created with deserters from the Mexican Army’s special forces (Gafes), broke with the cartel, plunging Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila and other states in the country into their worst crisis of violence in their modern history.
Reports indicate that members of the Zetas, led by Heriberto Lazcano, alias “El Lazca” or “El Verdugo”, were opposed to receiving orders from Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cárdenas Guillén, Osiel’s brother and who remained as leader of the CDG. Other sources indicate that the split occurred after members of the CDG murdered one of the representatives of the Zetas in that municipality in Reynosa. Although versions conflict about the cause of the split, it is noted that Cárdenas maintained the unity of his criminal organization during the four years he was in the Altiplano Penitentiary and this was lost after his extradition to the United States. The extreme violence of this division caused massacres, such as that of 72 migrants in San Fernando; thousands of homicides and disappearances, and plunged the northeast of the country into the terror of daily shootouts between 2009 and 2012. It also led to the disappearance of the Zetas, as their leaders were killed, like Lazcano, or arrested, which led members of that criminal organization to found the Cartel del Noreste (CDN), which has its base in Nuevo Laredo. Other members of the Zetas created the Zetas Vieja Escuela cartel, whose greatest presence is registered in the area of San Fernando. In turn, the leadership of the Cárdenas Guillén in the CDG was decimated by the deaths and arrests. “Tony Tormenta” was killed by the Navy in 2010, in Matamoros, while Mario, his other brother, nicknamed “Don Mario” or “El M1”, was arrested in 2012 in Altamira and extradited to the United States in 2022. “Don Mario” was sentenced to 14 years in prison and is expected to be released in April 2026. Homero, another of the capo’s brothers, known by the nickname “El Majadero”, died in 2014 in a private hospital in Monterrey, after allegedly undergoing liposuction surgery. In 2009, his nephew Mario Alberto Cárdenas Medina, alias “El Betillo”, son of “Don Mario”, was arrested by the military in Matamoros. In 2022, a federal judge acquitted him of crimes against health and possession of firearms for the exclusive use of the Army, and he was released. Rafael Cárdenas Vela, alias “Junior,” another of the nephews, was arrested in Puerto Isabel, Texas, accused of drug trafficking, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty. In 2023, Axel Alfredo and Alan Alexis Cárdenas Rodríguez, sons of Alfredo Cárdenas Martínez, alias “El Contador,” Osiel’s nephew, who was captured in 2022 in Mexico City, were arrested. Osiel Cárdenas Salinas, Osiel’s son, was sentenced in March 2023 to 8 years in federal prison for trying to buy 10 assault rifles in the United States to take to Mexico. With the fall from grace of the Cárdenas Guillén clan, divisions in the CDG have multiplied and multiple criminal cells are counted in Tamaulipas alone, according to police sources. “Los Metros” in Reynosa and “Los Escorpiones” in Matamoros, which reportedly include Cárdenas’ relatives in their structure, are considered the main internal factions of the cartel. In the south of the state, the CDG has a presence in the Tampico metropolitan area with “Los Escorpiones” allied with “Los Rojos.” These cartel groups fight each other, as well as against the CDN and Los Zetas Vieja Escuela. The violent disputes are considered responsible for regions such as the “small border” located between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, being in a constant state of narco-war. They are also held responsible for an increase in extortion, kidnappings, human trafficking and fuel smuggling.
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