Felix Gallardo's Kevo

Felix Gallardo rose to prominence in the Guadalajara drug trade by helping Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo flourish in their drug cartel. Gallardo was employed as a bodyguard to Governor Leopoldo Sanchez Celis where he was able to meet powerful politicians and influential socialites in Sinaloa who enabled his drug empire to flourish. Gallardo used his connections to benefit Caro Quintero and Fonseca Carrillo, earning him the nickname of "El Padrino," godfather of the Guadalajara drug cartel.

Gallardo revolutionized the drug industry of Mexico after realizing that the future lay in cocaine, and not marijuana or heroin. Refined cocaine arriving from the laboratories of Colombia was nearly impossible to detect, while marijuana crops were easily detected, even from the air. Gallardo joined forces with Honduran chemist Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros and established Mexico as the "pipeline" to the States, making Felix Gallardo the most powerful cocaine trafficker in the Western Hemisphere and his drug cartel virtually unstoppable. The arrests of Quintero and Carrillo for the murder of a DEA agent Enrique Camarena barely affected Gallardo's empire. Instead it enabled him to expand his operations to include distribution centers in Europe and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where his old partner Matta Ballesteros lived.
Work History
1970s Gallardo as a Sinaloa State Police officer helped Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo rise to preeminence in the Guadalajara drug trade. After serving as a police officer he became employed as a bodyguard to Governor Leopoldo Sanchez Celis. Gallardo joined forces with Honduran chemist Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, and together they helped establish Mexico as the "pipeline" to the U.S.