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Mexican drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, dies at 80
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, the founder of the Guadalajara cartel who changed the global cocaine trade, has died at 80 in a Guadalajara hospital.
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Mexican drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known as the “boss of bosses”, has died at the age of 80. He died in a hospital in Guadalajara, Jalisco, after being transferred from prison for emergency treatment two days earlier.
According to AFP, a statement from the security ministry of Jalisco state said he was kept under observation with a “guarded prognosis”. The ministry said he died on November 15 “after” he “suffered multiple organ failure”.
As per the WSJ, a Mexican official said he died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at a private hospital in Guadalajara. He was moved from a high-security prison on Friday.
Felix Gallardo had been in state custody since his arrest in 1989.
Who was Felix Gallardo?
According to AFP, Felix Gallardo was one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel, from which the Sinaloa cartel later came. He was a key player in building ties with Colombian drug traffickers.
He was a former Mexican police officer who rose from humble origins to become one of Latin America’s most powerful drug traffickers. Known as El Padrino, or the Godfather, he built an empire that changed Mexico’s ties with organized crime and government corruption, according to the WSJ. His fame grew after Mexican actor Diego Luna played him in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico”.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Felix Gallardo was born on January 8, 1946, in Sinaloa state. He joined the police despite having only a second-grade education. In the late 1970s, as the US increased its efforts to fight drug trafficking, he moved to Guadalajara and began building a network of political contacts and a large drug trafficking organization.
(This story is being updated)
