The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. Its founders were the brothers Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, and José Santacruz Londoño. They broke away from Pablo Escobar and his Medellín associates in the late 1980s, when Hélmer "Pacho" Herrera joined what became a four-man executive board that ran the cartel.
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. He was murdered on February 19, 1986 by contract killers hired by the cartel.
Basic is a 2003 mystery-action thriller film directed by John McTiernan and starring John Travolta, Connie Nielsen, and Samuel L. Jackson. It is the second collaboration of Travolta and Jackson, following 1994's Pulp Fiction. The story follows a DEA agent solving the mystery of a bungled training exercise that leads to the deaths of multiple Army Ranger cadets and their instructor. Basic received negative reviews from critics regarding its overall plot and numerous twist endings. It was a box-office bomb, grossing only $42.8 million worldwide against a $50 million budget.
The Norte del Valle Cartel, or North Valley Cartel, was a drug cartel that operated principally in the north of the Valle del Cauca department of Colombia, most notably the coastal city of Buenaventura. It rose to prominence during the second half of the 1990s, after the Cali and Medellín Cartels fragmented, and it was known as one of the most powerful organizations in the illegal drug trade. The drug cartel was led by the brothers Luis Enrique and Javier Antonio Calle Serna, alias "Los Comba", until its takedown in 2008 by the authorities of the United States.
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, commonly referred to by his aliases El Jefe de Jefes and El Padrino, is a convicted Mexican drug lord. He was one of the founders of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s, the cartel controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border.
The Guadalajara Cartel also known as The Federation(Spanish: La Federación) is a Mexican drug cartel which was formed in the late 1970s by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo in order to ship cocaine and marijuana to the United States. Among the first of the Mexican drug trafficking groups to work with the Colombian cocaine mafias, the Guadalajara Cartel prospered from the cocaine trade. Throughout the 1980s, the cartel controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border. It had operations in various regions in Mexico which included the states of Jalisco, Baja California, Colima, Sonora, Chihuahua and Sinaloa among others. Multiple modern present day drug cartels such as the Tijuana, Juárez and Sinaloa cartels originally started out as branches or "plazas" of the Guadalajara Cartel before its eventual disintegration.
Rafael Caro Quintero is a Mexican drug lord who co-founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers in the late 1970s. He is the brother of fellow drug trafficker Miguel Caro Quintero, founder and former leader of the defunct Sonora Cartel.
The Colima Cartel was a Mexican drug trafficking and methamphetamine producing cartel operating in Guadalajara, Jalisco. It was founded and led by José de Jesús Amezcua Contreras and supported by his brothers Adán and Luis.
José de Jesús Amezcua Contreras (born c. 1975, along with his brothers Adán and Luis, was a leader of the Colima Cartel, a Mexican methamphetamine and meth-precursor smuggling organization.
Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, commonly referred to by his alias El Azul, was a Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. Originally a member of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) police agency, he founded the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1970s along with other drug kingpins in Mexico. Following its disintegration in the late 1980s, he went on to lead the Juárez Cartel and eventually settled in the Sinaloa Cartel. He worked alongside Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, once considered Mexico's most-wanted drug lord.
The Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large international drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime syndicate established in Mexico during the late 1980s as one of a various number of "plazas" operating under a predecessor organization known as the Guadalajara Cartel. It is currently headed by Ismael Zambada García and is based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, with operations in many world regions but primarily in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Baja California, Durango, Sonora, and Chihuahua. It also has a notable presence in a number of other regions in Latin America, such as Colombia; as well as in cities across the U.S. The United States Intelligence Community generally considers the Sinaloa Cartel to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, making it perhaps even more influential and capable than the infamous Medellín Cartel of Colombia was during its prime. It has repeatedly been said to be one of the strongest criminal organizations in the world and indisputably the most powerful in Mexico since at least the late 2000s and early 2010s by various sources including the Los Angeles Times.
The Sonora Cartel, also known as Caro Quintero Organization, was a Mexico based criminal cartel. Upon the cartel's disintegration, its leaders were incorporated into the Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel.
Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, commonly referred to by his alias Tony Tormenta, was a Mexican drug lord and co-leader of the Gulf Cartel, a drug trafficking organization based in Tamaulipas. He headed the criminal group along with Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez. Antonio was considered by Mexican security forces as one of Mexico's most-wanted men.
Against All Enemies is a spy thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and co-authored with Peter Telep, and published on June 14, 2011. While it is set in the Ryanverse, it features a new character, ex-Navy SEAL and CIA paramilitary operations officer Max Moore, as he is tasked by a government joint task force to bring down a Mexican drug cartel and prevent Taliban terrorists from carrying out attacks in the United States. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
Narcos is an American crime drama streaming television series created and produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro. Set and filmed in Colombia, seasons 1 and 2 are based on the story of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine. The series also focuses on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, and various opposition entities. Season 3 picks up after the fall of Escobar and continues to follow the DEA as they try to shut down the rise of the infamous Cali Cartel.
The Mule is a 2018 American crime drama film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also plays the lead role. The screenplay, by Nick Schenk, is based on the 2014 The New York Times article "The Sinaloa Cartel's 90-Year-Old Drug Mule" by Sam Dolnick, which recounts the story of Leo Sharp, a World War II veteran who became a drug courier for the Sinaloa Cartel in his 80s.
Jorge Luis Mendoza Cárdenas, commonly referred to by his alias La Garra, is a Mexican suspected drug lord and high-ranking leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. Security forces suspect that La Garra heads the drug trafficking operations for the CJNG in the United States under Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the top leader of the criminal group. La Garra reportedly coordinates marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine shipments to Los Angeles, San Jose, Atlanta, and New York City from Mexico.
On 9 November 1999, two agents from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were threatened at gunpoint and nearly killed in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, by gunmen of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in the area. The two agents traveled to Matamoros with an informant to gather intelligence on the operations of the Gulf Cartel. As they cruised through one of the properties owned by the criminal group, they noticed several vehicles following them. The agents were forced to a stop and were corralled by a convoy of eight vehicles, from which fifteen gunmen emerged and surrounded the agents' car. Some of them wore uniforms of the local police. Among the gunmen was the former kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who recognized the informant and ordered the three of them to get out of their vehicle.
Carlos Landín Martínez, also known as El Puma, is a Mexican former police chief and convicted drug lord. He was a high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and worked as the second-in-command of the cartel in Reynosa from 2005 to 2007. Landín Martínez was a trusted enforcer of the kingpin Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa. Among his responsibilities included managing international drug trafficking shipments from Tamaulipas to Texas, collecting taxes from independent traffickers who operated in his turf, and managing money laundering operations. Landín Martínez was also a commander in the Tamaulipas State Police, where he headed the homicide task-force. According to a witness who testified against him in court, Landín Martínez worked for the Gulf Cartel while still employed by the state police.
Ediel López Falcón, also known as La Muela or Metro 5, is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico. He was the regional boss of Miguel Alemán and helped coordinate international drug trafficking shipments from South and Central America to Mexico and the U.S. His roles in the cartel were also to coordinate oil theft operations. In 2012, he was indicted by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for drug trafficking activities. After fleeing Mexico to avoid gang-related violence, López Falcón was arrested in Texas during a sting operation in 2013. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2015. He is currently imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ray Brook, New York. His expected release date is in 2029.
