Notorious Mexican drug cartel kingpin dubbed ‘Friend Killer’ released from US prison

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One of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords has been released from a US prison after serving most of a 25-year prison sentence, authorities confirmed Friday.

Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, 57, who was nicknamed “El Mata Amigos,” which means “Friend Killer,” was reportedly handed over to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a US Bureau of Prisons official told the Associated Press.

The former leader of the Gulf Cartel, who oversaw the trafficking of massive quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the US, has several charges pending in Mexico, and while it is not yet known whether the US government will move to deport him, an anonymous US official told NBC News the Biden administration planned to transfer him to Mexico.

Cárdenas Guillén, who was known for his brutality, created the most bloodthirsty gang of hitmen Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, which routinely slaughtered migrants and innocent people, decapitating them or dumping heaps of hacked-up bodies on the road.

In 2003, Cárdenas Guillén was captured and four years later, he was extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and extortion. In 2010, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $50 million.

It is not clear why Cárdenas Guillén did not serve the full sentence.

The Zetas lived on long after Cárdenas Guillén was captured in 2003. By 2010, the Zetas had formed their own cartel, spreading terror-style attacks across Mexico as far south as Tabasco until their top leaders were killed or arrested in 2012-2013.

Cárdenas Guillén’s own gang, the Gulf cartel, has become hopelessly splintered after more than a decade of bloody infighting between factions with names like the Metros, the Cyclones, the Reds and the Scorpions.

Cárdenas Guillén’s most brazen act was when he surrounded and stopped a vehicle carrying two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and one of their informants in 1999 along the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

His gunmen pointed their weapons at the agents and demanded they hand over the informant, who would almost certainly be tortured and killed. The agents toughed it out and refused, reminding him it would be a bad decision to kill employees of the DEA.

Cárdenas Guillén eventually called off his gunmen, but not before reportedly saying “You gringos, this is my territory.”