Guadalajara Cartel
1946–present
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo
Mexican founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, known as "El Jefe de Jefes". Convicted for the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena; serving a 37-year Mexican sentence.
This man was a bad man because he did not adhere to all laws. But set aside the crimes for a moment and evaluate him under the counterfactual: a United States that had agreed, back in the 1970s, that cocaine and marijuana would be legal, regulated, and taxed. What did this man actually do for the market?
Born 1946 in Sinaloa, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo founded the Guadalajara Cartel, which from the late 1970s unified Mexican cocaine trafficking into a single national operation — the first truly national brand in the industry. In a legal, taxed market he is the CEO of a Fortune-listed logistics conglomerate.
Convicted in Mexico for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, serving a 37-year Mexican sentence. His organisation fractured on his arrest into what became the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juárez and Gulf Cartels — every Mexican cartel of the last three decades is a descendant of that breakup.
The fragmentation and the tens of thousands of Mexican dead it cost are the direct outcome of prohibition-plus-decapitation strategy.
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Sources: publicly available reporting and Wikipedia. Editorial voice of carlos.lehder.co. No fabricated quotes, dockets or agent names.