OAN Staff Avril Elfi
Saturday, August 31, 2024, 10:16 a.m.
A former drug cartel leader has been released from a US prison after serving most of his 25-year sentence.
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The former head of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
According to officials, ReutersGuillén founded the Zetas, an organization made up of former Mexican special forces soldiers who operated as death squads and private armies.
Cárdenas Guillén was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2010 for threatening to kill and assault federal agents and forfeiting $50 million in criminal enterprise proceeds. It is unclear why he did not serve his full sentence.
Associated Press Mexican officials reported that Cárdenas Guillén has two arrest warrants out for him and could be deported.
“It's a big deal,” said Leo Silva, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who fought the Zetas in Mexico. Reuters Cárdenas Guillén “created a new era of organized crime” and “unleashed a spirit of terror in the country.”
Silva also reportedly blamed Cardenas Guillen for the rise in cartel-related violence in Mexico over the past two decades.
Associated Press The Zetas also reported that as part of their terror attacks, they frequently killed dozens of people, beheaded them and dumped piles of mutilated bodies on public roads.
“El Mata Amigos” means “the killer of his friends” and is Cárdenas Guillén's own nickname.
The 57-year-old once made millions of dollars and smuggled tons of cocaine through the Gulf Cartel, which is based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.
He was arrested in 2003 and extradited to the United States four years later. By 2010, the Zetas had established themselves as a cartel in their own right, waging terrorist attacks as far south as the Mexican state of Tabasco, until their leaders were assassinated or detained between 2012 and 2013.
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