Head of Gulf Cartel get 25 years, forfeits $50 million

Department of Justice Press Release

For Immediate Release
February 24, 2010 United States Attorney's Office
Southern District of Texas
Contact: (713) 567-9000

Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, Former Head of the Gulf Cartel, Sentenced to 25 Years’ Imprisonment

Judgment Entered Forfeiting $50 Million of Cardenas-Guillen’s Ill-Gotten Gains to the United States

HOUSTON—The former head of the notorious Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, 42, of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, has been sentenced to serve 25 years in federal prison without parole and will forfeit to the United States $50 million in proceeds from his illegal enterprise, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today. United States District Judge Hilda Tagle handed down the sentence this morning.

Originally indicted in 2000 in the Southern District of Texas, Cardenas-Guillen was extradited in January 2007—one of a total of 15 major drug defendants and others extradited to the United States from Mexico—for prosecution. He has remained in federal custody without bond since then.

“The successful prosecution of Cardenas-Guillen underscores the joint resolve of the United States and Mexico to pursue and prosecute the leadership of the drug trafficking cartels, dismantle their organizations and end the violence and corruption they have spawned,â€

A Job seems to have opened up somewhere for someone else. Thats all that sounds like.

Sounds to me like a warning to other people that they can get 25 years and get all of their money taken away.