Sinaloa Cartel

=== Guadalajara Cartel===

=== Guadalajara Cartel===

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, who co-founded the [[Guadalajara Cartel]] between 1978 and 1980, from then on; controlled much of Mexico’s drug-trafficking corridors along the United States border throughout the 1980s, only to be rivaled by the [[Gulf Cartel]] which controlled some of eastern Mexico’s drug trade. Félix Gallardo divided up his “Federation” by 1987, just two years after the capture and murder of [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] agent [[Enrique Camarena Salazar]] when the threat from American law enforcement became much more pressing. This division of the organization in the late 1980s led to the cartel essentially being made up of several smaller cartels who controlled their own territories and trafficking corridors with their own bosses. This would make it less likely the whole organization would be brought down all at once. One of these cartels (called plazas at the time) was Sinaloa, with the city of [[Culiacán]] acting as its headquarters.

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, who co-founded the [[Guadalajara Cartel]] between 1978 and 1980, from then on; controlled much of Mexico’s drug-trafficking corridors along the United States border throughout the 1980s, only to be rivaled by the [[Gulf Cartel]] which controlled some of eastern Mexico’s drug trade. Félix Gallardo divided up his “Federation” by 1987, just two years after the capture and murder of [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] agent [[Enrique Camarena Salazar]] when the threat from American law enforcement became much more pressing. This division of the organization in the late 1980s led to the cartel essentially being made up of several smaller cartels who controlled their own territories and trafficking corridors with their own bosses. This would make it less likely the whole organization would be brought down all at once. One of these cartels (called plazas at the time) was Sinaloa, with the city of [[Culiacán]] acting as its headquarters for Mexico’s [[Pacific Coast of Mexico|Pacific coast]] drug operations.<ref name=”Beith 2010″ />

Gallardo was eventually arrested in 1989 and, while incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico’s major traffickers, maintaining contact with his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the early 1990s. At that point his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, left and further solidified the organization which came to be known as the [[Tijuana Cartel]], while the Sinaloa Cartel continued to be run by former lieutenants [[Héctor Luis Palma Salazar]] (a.k.a. El Güero Palma), [[Adrián Gómez González]] and Joaquín Guzmán Loera.

Gallardo was eventually arrested in 1989 and, while incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico’s major traffickers, maintaining contact with his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the early 1990s. At that point his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, left and further solidified the organization which came to be known as the [[Tijuana Cartel]], while the Sinaloa Cartel continued to be run by former lieutenants [[Héctor Luis Palma Salazar]] (a.k.a. El Güero Palma), [[Adrián Gómez González]] and Joaquín Guzmán Loera.