Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, famous drug trafficker nicknamed “Murderer of Friends”, returned to Mexico after being sentenced to prison in the United States.

Notorious drug trafficker Osiel Cárdenas Guillén He has been returned to Mexico after serving a sentence in the United States and was quickly rearrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.

There was nervousness about the imminent return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once directed the feared gulf poster in northeastern Mexico before being arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.

The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed on its social media accounts on Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in US custody, the bulk of his 25-year US prison sentence. He is a Mexican citizen, which is why he was allegedly deported.

“The successful removal of Osiel Cárdenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” said Chicago Field Office Director of Deportation and Enforcement Operations Samuel Olson in a statement.

A Mexican federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Cárdenas Guillén had been immediately detained in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money laundering charges.

The official said that Cárdenas Guillén was being held in the Altiplano maximum security prison, west of Mexico City.

Homeland Security Investigations published photographs of Cárdenas Guillén, potbellied, bald and wearing glasses, escorted by two officers in helmets and bulletproof vests, and walking on a border bridge.

The image contrasts with the drug lord’s fearsome reputation for violence in Mexico.

Nicknamed “El Mata Amigos”, he recruited former soldiers of the Mexican special forces to form his personal guard. The former head of the Gulf cartel was known for his brutality. He created the bloodiest gang of hitmen Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, who routinely massacred migrants and innocent people.

The 57-year-old man, originally from the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and earned millions of dollars through the Gulf cartel, based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.

After his arrest in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, he was extradited in 2007 to the United States, where he was sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison and was ordered to pay $50 million.

At that time, the Department of Justice alleged that Cárdenas Guillén threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy working as an undercover ICE agent because he refused to hand over nearly 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.