[1][2] Amado Carrillo became known as "El Señor de Los Cielos" ("The Lord of the Skies"), because of the large fleet of jets he used to transport drugs.

Amado got his start in the drug business under the tutelage of his uncle Ernesto and later brought in his brothers, and eventually his son Vicente José Carrillo Leyva.

Later, Carrillo worked with Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel smuggling drugs from Colombia to Mexico and the United States.

Carrillo Fuentes owned a house three blocks from the governor's official residence and regularly held narco-fiestas in the municipality of Tetecala.

Subsequently, on July 4, 1997 Carrillo decided to move forward with the operation at Santa Mónica Hospital in Mexico City.

On November 7, 1997, the two surgeons who performed Carrillo's surgery were found dead, encased in concrete inside steel drums, with their bodies showing signs of torture.

On the night of August 3, 1997, at around 9:30 p.m., four drug traffickers walked into a restaurant in Ciudad Juárez, pulled out their guns, and opened fire on five diners, killing them instantly.

[14][15] On their way out, the gunmen claimed another victim,[16] Armando Olague, a prison official and off-duty law enforcement officer who was gunned down outside the restaurant after he had walked from a nearby bar to investigate the shooting.

[16] In Ciudad Juárez, the Office of the Mexican Attorney-General (PGR) seized warehouses that they believed the cartel used to store weapons and cocaine.