The 'godfather' of Mexico's cartels has been sentenced for killing of a DEA agent

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August 30, 2017 10:50 PM

Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was sentenced to 40 years for the killing of a DEA agent in the 1980s, and another judge has confirmed the judgment.

A federal judge in Mexico's Jalisco state on August 23 sentenced one-time Guadalajara cartel chief Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo to 37 years in prison for the 1985 killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena.

Camarena, whose undercover work led to the seizure and destruction of huge marijuana plantations in Mexico that wounded the Guadalajara cartel, was kidnapped off a street in Guadalajara on February 7, 1985.

His body, along with that of a pilot, was found a month later with signs of torture.

The killing caused a firestorm in US-Mexico relations.

The Reagan administration pressured the government of then-Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid to act. US customs officials came close to shutting the border between the two countries.

Gallardo, as well as fellow Guadalajara leaders Ernesto Fonseca and Rafael Caro Quintero, was immediately suspected of involvement. Fonseca and Caro Quintero were quickly apprehended, but Gallardo, who had help from Mexican police and government officials, remained on the run for years.

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