Carlos Alberto Rosales Mendoza (12 February 1963 – 27 December 2015) was a former Mexican drug lord who founded and led an organized crime syndicate called La Familia Michoacana.

[3] When Rosales Mendoza founded the first cells of La Familia Michoacana in the 1980s, the Milenio Cartel was competing with the organization for the control of the production and distribution of narcotics in the state of Michoacán.

His men managed to free 25 inmates, but Rosales Mendoza was arrested on suspicion of masterminding the jailbreak and spent the next decade in prison.

[7][14][15][16] While preparing to liberate Osiel Cárdenas Guillén from prison, a squadron of about 150 soldiers in the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE), the special forces unit of the Mexican Army, arrested Rosales Mendoza in the capital city of Morelia, Michoacán on 24 October 2004.

[20] On 22 May 2014, Rosales Mendoza was released from prison in Jalisco after fulfilling his ten-year sentence for illegal possession of firearms, organized crime, and drug trafficking.