Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (born January 8, 1946), commonly referred to by his aliases El Jefe de Jefes ("The Boss of Bosses") and El Padrino ("The Godfather"), is a convicted Mexican drug kingpin and a former Federal Judicial Police agent.

He was one of the founders of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s.

Throughout the 1980s, the cartel controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border.

In the early 1980s, drug interdiction efforts increased throughout Florida, which was then the major shipping destination for illegal drug traffickers.

As a result, the Colombian cartels began to utilize Mexico as their primary trans-shipment point.

Juan Matta-Ballesteros was the Guadalajara Cartel's primary connection to the Colombian cartels, as he had originally introduced

Félix Gallardo's predecessor, Alberto Sicilia Falcón, to Santiago Ocampo of the Cali Cartel, one of the largest Colombian drug cartels.

Rather than taking cash payments for their services, the smugglers in the Guadalajara Cartel took a 50% cut of the cocaine they transported from Colombia.

This proved to be extremely profitable for them, with some estimating that the trafficking network, then operated by Félix

Gallardo, Ernesto Carrillo and Rafael Quintero, was pulling in approximately $5 billion annually.

Until the end of the 1980s, the Guadalajara Cartel headed by Félix Gallardo (comprising what is now known today as the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juarez and Pacifico Sur cartels) had nearly monopolized the illegal drug trade in Mexico.

In 1980, DEA special agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was assigned to the Administration's resident agency in Guadalajara.

Working through informants, Camarena discovered cartel marijuana plantations in Zacatecas state.

The plantations were raided and destroyed.

In 1984, Mexican soldiers, backed by helicopters, destroyed an even larger 1,000 hectare (≈2,500 acre) marijuana plantation known as "Rancho Búfalo" in Chihuahua, known to be protected by Mexican DFS intelligence agents, as part of "Operation Godfather".

Thousands of farmers worked the fields at Rancho Búfalo, and the annual production was later valued at US$8 billion.

All of this took place with the knowledge of local police, politicians, and the military.

Camarena was beginning to expose the connections among drug traffickers, Mexican law enforcement, and high-ranking government officials within the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which Félix Gallardo considered to be a major threat to the Guadalajara cartel's operations throughout Mexico.

In response, Félix Gallardo reportedly ordered the kidnapping of Camarena.

On February 7, 1985, Jalisco police officers on the cartel's payroll kidnapped Camarena as he left the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara.

His helicopter pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, was kidnapped shortly afterward.

They were taken to a residence located at 881 Lope de Vega in the colonia of Jardines del Bosque, in the western section of the city of Guadalajara, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, where they were tortured and interrogated over a period of 30 hours.

On February 9, Camarena was tortured and murdered.

Autopsy results indicated that he died

when his skull was perforated with a drill.

He was injected with adrenaline and other drugs to be kept awake during his torture and interrogation.

His body, wrapped in plastic, was found with that of pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar, in a shallow hole on a ranch in Michoacan state.

The murder prompted one of the largest DEA homicide investigations ever undertaken, Operation Leyenda.

A special unit was dispatched to coordinate the investigation in Mexico, where corrupt officials were being implicated.

Investigators identified Félix Gallardo and his two close associates, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, as the primary suspects in the kidnapping.

Under pressure from the US, Fonseca and Quintero were apprehended, but Félix Gallardo still enjoyed political protection.

Félix Gallardo kept a low profile and, in 1987, moved with his family to Guadalajara.

Félix Gallardo was arrested in 1989 for putting in place the murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena.

He was serving his 40-year sentence at the Altiplano maximum-security prison but was transferred to a medium-security facility in 2014 due to his declining health.

Born on a ranch in Bellavista, on the outskirts of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Félix Gallardo graduated from high school and studied business in college.

He took a job as a Mexican Federal Judicial Police agent.

He worked as a family bodyguard for the governor of Sinaloa state Leopoldo Sánchez Celis, whose political connections helped Félix Gallardo to build his drug trafficking organization.

He was also the godfather of Sánchez

Celis' son, Rodolfo.

Félix Gallardo started working for drug traffickers brokering corruption of state officials, and together with Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, who previously worked in the Avilés criminal organization, took control of the trafficking routes after Avilés was killed in a police shootout.