Midwest
Former Mexican drug cartel leader who generated 'new era' of organized crime is released from US prison
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, a former drug cartel leader described as having “generated a new era of organized crime” in Mexico, has now been released from U.S. prison and may be heading back over the border, reports say.
Cárdenas Guillén, the past leader of the Gulf cartel who created the Zetas — a gang of former Mexican special forces soldiers who became his private army and hit squad — was transferred into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, officials told Reuters.
In 2010, Cárdenas Guillén was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges including threatening to assault and murder federal agents and was ordered to forfeit $50 million from his criminal enterprise. It’s unclear why he did not serve his full sentence. However, the move into ICE custody suggests he will be deported to Mexico, where an official says he faces two arrest warrants, according to The Associated Press.
Leo Silva, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who previously worked in Mexico to combat the Zetas, told Reuters that the Cárdenas Guillén “generated a new era of organized crime” and “unleashed this mentality of creating fear in the country.”
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Osiel Cárdenas Guillén is escorted by members of Mexico’s Federal Agency of Investigations in Mexico City in January 2007. (Reuters/Attorney General’s office)
The news agency cites Silva as directly blaming Cárdenas Guillén for the rise in grisly cartel-related violence in Mexico over the last 20 years.
The Zetas that he created committed acts of terror that regularly involved slaughtering dozens of people, decapitating them or dumping heaps of hacked-up bodies on roadways, The Associated Press reports.
Cárdenas Guillén’s own nickname was “El Mata Amigos,” or “The one who kills his friends,” and the 57-year-old once moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars through the Gulf cartel, based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.
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A gun decorated with gold belonging to Osiel Cárdenas Guillén is displayed in the Drugs Museum, used by the military to showcase to soldiers the lifestyles of Mexican drug lords, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense in Mexico City in October 2016. (Reuters/Henry Romero)
He was eventually captured in 2003 and extradited to the U.S. four years later. 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.
The AP reports that one of Cárdenas Guillén’s most brazen acts was when he surrounded and stopped a vehicle carrying two U.S. DEA agents and one of their informants in 1999 in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén is shown in January 2007 before being extradited to the U.S.
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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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NDSU could make the CFP in 2026.
Winning has been the standard at North Dakota State for decades, and one college football analyst expects a similar result in the FBS right away.
Brett McMurphy of On3 believes NDSU will run the table 12-0 with a Mountain West Conference championship and make the College Football Playoff. McMurphy projects the Bison to face Oregon in the CFP, the Fargo Forum’s Jeff Kolpack reported.
That would mean the Bison would go on the road to Eugene against a perennial FBS contender, which didn’t go well for the last Group of Six team to play the Ducks. Oregon steamrolled James Madison 51-34 in last season’s CFP before the Ducks took down Texas Tech and lost to eventual national champion Indiana.
It’s not impossible for the Bison to get that far based on Sagarin Ratings and the program’s history of success against FBS teams. The Bison would need to maximize what they can control and to have a few things fall their way.
That said, all of this would be contingent upon the Bison receiving clearance for postseason competition from the NCAA on Thursday. Transitioning teams normally face a two-year postseason ban, and NDSU had been in a similar situation before, with a four-year postseason ban during the move from Division II to the FCS in 2004.
NDSU Looking to Pass JMU Again
In 2016, the JMU interrupted NDSU’s five-year FCS championship run with a playoff upset at the Fargodome.
NDSU then beat JMU in the 2017 season championship to win a sixth title in seven years. The Bison beat JMU again in the FCS championship game again for the 2019 season before the Dukes joined the FBS in 2022.
JMU’s success at the FBS level has resulted in two bowl game appearances and Sun Belt Conference title. Amid the conference crown, the Dukes slipped into the CFP as the ACC went topsy-turvy when a 5-5 Duke Blue Devils team at the time upset Virginia.
JMU made the CFP, and Miami represented the ACC while Notre Dame sat at home despite a 10-2 record and a close early-season loss to the national runner-up Hurricanes. NDSU, meanwhile, had a 12-0 regular season in the FCS and got stunned in the FCS playoffs by Illinois State, the second team ever to win a playoff game in Fargo.
The Bison looked like a program retooling to get back up from a postseason disappointment in January, but February brought the news of NDSU’s long-anticipated move up to the FBS. The Mountain West Conference invited the Bison amid the conference’s restructuring with five teams leaving for the Pac-12.
That made the former FCS titan attractive to the Mountain West, which notably lost former CFP entrant Boise State. Whether or not NDSU can become the Mountain West’s new Boise State or pass JMU as a premiere Group of Six team remains unknown.
Common Opponents Key For Bison
The Bison have the odds stacked against them in 2026 to make the CFP, but it’s not impossible.
NDSU doesn’t have a Power Four opponent, but the Bison can make up for that by margin of victory, especially with any Mountain West contenders that have Power Four opponents during the season.
New Mexico has the biggest Power Four opponent among Mountain West teams with Oklahoma, and UTEP faces Oklahoma and Michigan. San Jose State faces USC, another team with CFP hopes.
NDSU beating New Mexico, UTEP and San Jose State handily will especially help in making a run for the playoff.
Matthew Davis covers the NFL, WNBA and college sports for Heavy.com. As a contributing writer to the StarTribune, he has also covered Minnesota prep sports since 2016. More about Matthew Davis
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