HomeNewsBriefMexico Capture of 'Gulf Cartel Founder' Highlights Leadership Vacuum
BRIEF

Mexico Capture of 'Gulf Cartel Founder' Highlights Leadership Vacuum

GULF CARTEL / 26 FEB 2014 BY MARGUERITE CAWLEY EN

Authorities in Mexico have arrested a man they claim is a leader and founder of the Gulf Cartel, signaling another blow to a group that has already been weakened by infighting and arrests, and raising questions about what the group's current leadership structure looks like.

Mexican national police captured Javier Garza Medrano in the town of Taxco, in the southwest Pacific state of Guerrero, along with five other suspected members of the cartel, reported Proceso.

According to the National Security Commission (CSN) and intelligence reports, Medrano is one of the leaders of the Gulf Cartel and is responsible for coordinating drug shipments to the United States, in addition to distributing drugs in Mexico City and Tamaulipas.

He is also thought to lead cells operating in Guerrero involved in kidnapping and extortion, and to be involved in the theft of oil from the company Pemex, reported El Universal.

The 36-year-old alleged drug cartel leader was formerly a municipal policeman in Tamaulipas.

InSight Crime Analysis

Aside from news of his capture, there is little additional information available on Medrano from reliable sources. The Facebook news site Valor por Tamaulipas refers to him as alias "K14" and identifies him as the person responsible for the massacre of 30 people in the state in 2012. The website "Los Narco Empresarios" (the Narco Businessmen) says Medrano ran a company with an important Tamaulipas businessman and maintained ties with area police, attributing this information to the Attorney General's Office's organized crime division (SEIDO).

The signaling of Medrano as a key leader of the cartel serves, more than anything, to highlight the current confusion over the organization's leadership, which has no high profile figurehead. His labeling as a "founder," meanwhile, is odd, given that the Gulf Cartel's roots go back to 1984, when Medrano would have been a young child.

SEE ALSO: Gulf Cartel News and Profile

The Gulf Cartel has suffered a number of blows to its top leadership in recent years, beginning with the extradition of founder Osiel Cardenas Guillen in 2007 and culminating in the capture of top leader Mario Ramirez Treviño, alias "X20," in August 2013. The cartel has also fallen victim to internal divisions, with rival factions bitterly fighting for control, and was in a state of internal chaos even before the X20 arrest.

Following X20's arrest, rumors began to circle about who would assume his position, but no clear leader has emerged, and the level of influence the battered cartel continues to have inside or outside of Tamaulipas, its home turf, remains unclear.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 14 APR 2022

government searching for solutions to prevent extinction while trying not to lose the favor of local anglers.

FEATURED / 15 MAR 2022

The $215,520 began its journey south in the parking lot of a Meijer grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky, a 19-hour…

ELITES AND CRIME / 30 JUN 2021

The embattled governor of a northern border state in Mexico is touting the timely arrests of those allegedly responsible for…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…