[14] By the 1980s, García Ábrego began incorporating cocaine into the drug trafficking operations and started to have the upper hand on what was now considered the Gulf Cartel, the greatest criminal dynasty in the US-Mexico border.

It was later proven after his arrest that the deputy attorney general in charge of Mexico's federal Judicial Police had accumulated more than US$9 million for protecting García Ábrego.

[30] Further theories put forward to allege the arrest of García Ábrego was to satisfy U.S. demands and meet certification, from the Department of Justice (DOJ), as a trade partner, the vote set to take place on 1 March.

[47] He was to be replaced by Óscar Malherbe de León and Raúl Valladares del Ángel, until their arrest a short time later,[48] causing several cartel lieutenants to fight for the leadership.

[49] Hugo Baldomero Medina Garza, known as El Señor Padrino de los Tráilers (the lord of the Trailers), is considered one of the most important members in the rearticulation of the Gulf Cartel.

[55] As confrontations with rival groups heated up, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén sought and recruited over 30 deserters of the Mexican Army's elite Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) to form part of the cartel's armed wing.

After his imprisonment a short time later, Jorge Madrazo Cuéllar created the National Public Security System (SNSP), to fight the drug cartels along the U.S.–Mexico border.

[62] Among the original defectors were Jaime González Durán,[63] Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar,[64] and Heriberto Lazcano,[65] who would later become the supreme leader of the independent cartel of Los Zetas.

They began to organize kidnappings;[70] impose taxes, collect debts, and operate protection rackets;[71] control the extortion business;[72] securing cocaine supply and trafficking routes known as plazas (zones) and executing its foes, often with grotesque savagery.

[78][79] On 9 November 1999, two U.S. agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and FBI were threatened at gunpoint by Cárdenas Guillén and approximately fifteen of his henchmen in Matamoros.

Moreover, through handwritten notes, Cárdenas gave orders on the movement of drugs along Mexico and to the United States, approved executions, and signed forms to allow the purchase of police forces.

[110] Some sources reveal that as a result of the supremacy of Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel felt threatened by the growing force of their enforcer group and decided to curtail their influence, but eventually failed in their attempt, instigating a war.

[113] Nevertheless, other sources also reveal that Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, brother of Osiel and one of the successors of the Gulf Cartel, was addicted to gambling, sex, and drugs, leading Los Zetas to consider his leadership as a threat to the organization.

[137] The street confrontations generated a wave of panic among the population and caused the publication and broadcast of messages through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, reporting the clashes between authorities and the cartel members.

[147][148][149][150][151] Although not confirmed, KVEO-TV, several online sources and witnesses, along with one law enforcement officer who preferred to keep his name anonymous, mentioned that more than 100 people died that day in Matamoros.

[174] The infighting between the Metros and the Rojos of the Gulf cartel began in 2010, when Juan Mejía González, nicknamed El R-1, was overlooked as the candidate of the regional boss of Reynosa and was sent to the "Frontera Chica", an area that encompasses Miguel Alemán, Camargo and Ciudad Mier – directly across the U.S.–Mexico border from Starr County, Texas.

[187] In January 2020, high-ranking U.S. Gulf Cartel member Jorge Costilla-Sanchez pleaded guilty to an international drug trafficking conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana into the United States.

Authorities believe that González Pizaña reincorporated in organized crime and decided to join with the Gulf Cartel to end the war with Los Zetas, and bring back the "old school" ways when they were together.

"[214] Although drug-related violence has existed since the early beginnings of the Gulf Cartel, it often happened in low-profile levels, while the government agreed to "look the other way" while the drug traffickers went about their business—as long as they behaved.

"[222] The Excélsior newspaper reported that the former governors of Tamaulipas, Manuel Cavazos Lerma (1993–1999), Tomás Yarrington (1999–2004), and Eugenio Hernández Flores (2005–2010) have had close ties with the Gulf Cartel.

[223] On 30 January 2012, the Attorney General of Mexico issued a communiqué ordering the past three governors of Tamaulipas and their families to remain in the country as they are being investigated for possible cooperation with the Mexican drug cartels.

"[230] On 5 June 2016, citizens from Tamaulipas elected a governor from the opposition party, Fransico Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, member of Accion Nacional (National Action).

[232] While his election did not have that much substance in a public policy perspective, its rhetoric of a peaceful transition, enabled him to defeat by double digits the candidate from the ruling party, Baltazar Manuel Hinijosa Ochoa.

[236] Also according to Proceso, Baltazar Hinojosa is under investigation by the United States Department of Treasury for laundering money through the Panama Papers target, the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

[244] The federal government "strongly condemned" the prison breaks and said that the work by the state and municipal authorities of Tamaulipas "lack effective control measures" and urged them to strengthen their institutions.

[260] El Universal released an article which said that the National Public Security System (SNSP) has condemned the cops' salaries, and demanded the state and municipal authorities to create better paying programs for the policemen so they can have a "just wage" for themselves and their families.

[273] The modus operandi ("mode of operation") of the Gulf Cartel changes whenever the United States attempts to strengthen their domestic policy in reinforcing the borders.

[292] The Mexican military mentioned that in the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, where the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas fight for territory, abductions are carried out very commonly.

[316] His former friends and associates mentioned that the drug lord was paying one of Carlos Salinas de Gortari's deputy attorneys general more than $1.5 million a month for his protection.

[319] FBI agents have claimed that the Gulf Cartel moves millions of dollars in cash through the Rio Grande Valley each month, a tempting amount for many U.S.