Juan García Abrego

In February 2010, Los Zetas engaged in a violent turf war against its former employer/partner, the Gulf Cartel, in the border city of Reynosa, ren his family, preferred to speak face-to-face, and always carried a pistol.

Following the arrest of García Abrego, Osiel Cárdenas Guillen took over the cartel. Cárdenas was known for founding the para-military group Los Zetas as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. Cárdenas was captured by the Mexican Army after a battle on March 14, 2003 in Matamoros.

Further theories put forward allege the arrest of García Abrego was to satisfy U.S. demands and meet certification, from the Department of Justice (DOJ), as a trade partner, the vote set to take place on March 1. García Abrego was apprehended on January 14, 1996, and Mexico shortly after received certification on March 1.

Juan García Abrego had grown to such lengths that he was placed on the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted List of 1995. He has the distinction of being the first drug trafficker to ever be placed on that list. He was arrested on a ranch outside of Monterrey on January 14, 1996.

In 1991, a principal member of the Gulf Cartel, Tomás "Gringo" Sánchez, ordered the killing of a Colombian drug trafficker in a prison in Matamoros. The killing was not authorized by García Abrego, and a riot subsequently broke out, killing two members of the Gulf Cartel who were also incarcerated there. García Abrego, furious with the media attention that followed the riot, ordered the killing of Sánchez for overstepping his authority and bringing unwanted attention to the cartel.

In addition to transporting cocaine for the Cali Cartel, it was believed the García Abrego cartel would also ship large quantities of cash to be laundered. The United States Department of Justice would confiscate over US$53 million between 1989 and 1993 that was being laundered through two corrupt American Express employees as proof of such large scale operations. In 1994, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) believed García Abrego was making as much as US$10 billion per year in profit. The following years Fortune Magazine estimated the García Abrego empire to be worth US$15 billion.

Reports date his trafficking career beginning in the mid-1970s, exporting marijuana from Mexico into the U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. In the early 1980s he began incorporating cocaine into the cartel's trafficking operations. United States intelligence reports state Guerra reared his nephew on car theft before passing down his criminal enterprise. Garcia Abrego was involved in car theft activities since the 1970s along with his best friend Líctor Hazael Marroquín García. The exact date of succession is unknown; however, law enforcement officials recall an incident on January 27, 1987, when Tomás Morlet, former officer in an elite Mexican police force turned national trafficker, exchanged harsh words with García Abrego and was later found, shot twice in the back in the doorway of Guerra's Piedras Negras Restaurant.

García Abrego's ties however extended beyond the Mexican government and into the United States. With the arrest of one of García Abrego's traffickers, Juan Antonio Ortiz, it became known the cartel would ship tons of cocaine in United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) buses between the years of 1986 to 1990. The buses made great transportation, as Antonio Ortiz noted, since they were never stopped at the border.

García Abrego's reach became known when a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent named Claude de la O., in 1986, stated in testimony against García Abrego that he received over US$100,000 in bribes and had leaked information that could have endangered an FBI informant as well as Mexican journalists. In 1989, Claude was removed from the case for unknown reasons, retiring a year later. García Abrego bribed the agent in an attempt to gather more information on U.S. law enforcement operations.

It is believed that on May 16, 1984, García Abrego ordered a hit on rival trafficker Casimiro Espinosa. The murder attempt failed, leaving Casimiro injured. The following day gunmen shot their way into Raya Clinic, a private hospital, looking for Casimiro. In the ten-minute shootout that followed, 300 rounds were fired and multiple innocent people were killed, including a security guard, a husband and child, and a bedridden woman. Casimiro died the following day due to injuries sustained in the shoot out.

Two years after the 1984 clinic shoot out, Ernesto Flores, an editor for the Mexican daily newspaper El Popular, was executed. It is believed García Abrego ordered the hit after being aggravated with their coverage of the cartel's deeds. Flores car was sprayed with gunfire by gunmen waiting at the entrance to the newspaper's offices. Norma Morena, a reporter for the newspaper, was also killed in the attack.

García Abrego is widely known for innovating Mexican trafficking operations, turning them from smugglers into suppliers. By renegotiating deals with the Cali Cartel, García Abrego was able to secure 50% of every shipment out of Colombia as payment for delivery, instead of the US$1,500 per kilo they were previously receiving. The renegotiating, however, brought a price: the cartel would have to guarantee any shipment from Colombia to its destination. This change forced García Abrego to begin stockpiling hundreds of tons of cocaine along Mexico's northern border in warehouses; however, this allowed him to set up his own distribution network and expand his political influence. By the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, it was estimated García Abrego was smuggling over 300 metric tons per year across the Mexico–United States border.

García Abrego was also involved in providing protection to other cartels wishing to operate within corridors already claimed by his organization. In the mid-1980s, Carlos Reséndez set up a meeting between García Abrego and Gernando "El Aguacate" Martínez, regarding permission for Martínez to move cocaine through Matamoros. García Abrego permitted him to do so in exchange for US$200k per airplane flying through the region.

Juan García Abrego (born September 13, 1944) is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former leader of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. He started in the cartel under the tutelage of his uncle Juan Nepomuceno Guerra.