After the arrest of the cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, Costilla Sánchez took control and became partner with Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, Heriberto Lazcano and Héctor Manuel Sauceda Gamboa (El Karis).
In that incident, FBI and DEA agents in Mexico were forcibly stopped at gunpoint by a group of heavily armed men, allegedly including Costilla Sánchez and other key members of the Gulf Cartel.
[2] When Osiel was arrested in 2003, Costilla Sánchez joined the drug lord's brother, Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, in running the Gulf Cartel's operations.
[13] The power struggle after Osiel's extradition in 2007 prompted for Los Zetas, the mercenary gang formed by ex-commandos of the Mexican Army and the former armed wing of the cartel, to separate and former their own criminal organization.
The fight between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas transformed northeastern Mexico into a "war zone" with daily gunfights, decapitations, and other gruesome slayings.
[13] After the death of Antonio in a gunfight with the Mexican Marines on 5 November 2010, Costilla Sánchez took full control of the Gulf Cartel and began directing the daily drug trafficking activities of the organization.
[14] Among other charges, Costilla Sánchez is accused of being involved in the 2004 assassination of the journalist Francisco Arratia Saldierna, who covered drug trafficking and organized crime reports in Matamoros.
[16] On 9 November 1999, two U.S. agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were threatened at gunpoint by Cárdenas Guillén, Costilla Sánchez, and approximately fifteen of his henchmen in Matamoros.
[20] In the late 1990s, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, then leader of the Gulf Cartel, began recruiting members of the Mexican Army to protect his territory, personnel, and drug trafficking operations.
On 18 January 2010, several members of the Gulf Cartel kidnapped Víctor Peña Mendoza, a leader of Los Zetas nicknamed Concord 3 and a close associate and friend of Miguel Treviño Morales, alias Z-40.
[21] When he was held captive, Peña Mendoza was asked to switch alliances and join the Gulf Cartel, but he refused, earning a beating and an execution, presumably carried out by Samuel Flores Borrego.
[21] Treviño Morales heard about the incident and issued an ultimatum to Flores Borrego and Costilla Sánchez: "Hand over the assassin of my friend, you son of a bitch ... You have until the 25th, if you don't comply, there will be war.
Reportedly, Torre Cantú was killed by an armed squad directly linked to Costilla Sánchez for refusing to protect the cartel's investments that allowed money laundering from drug proceeds.
[29] The Mexican Navy arrested Costilla Sánchez on 12 September 2012 at the residential Lomas de Rosales neighborhood in Tampico, Tamaulipas without firing a single bullet.
[38] Two days after the arrest of Costilla Sánchez, 16 people were killed as a result of the Gulf Cartel infighting in two separate attacks carried out in Nuevo Laredo and San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
[41] Nonetheless, Costilla Sánchez's own tactics backfired after a group of his henchmen arrested in Río Bravo, Tamaulipas reportedly betrayed him and notified the authorities of his whereabouts.
As previously reported by the agency, "drug queens" in Mexico tend to have difficulty commanding their cartels, and have been forced to work alongside men to legitimize their positions.
Since their leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and the Gulf Cartel tend to be "business-oriented," both organizations may possibly strengthen their alliances by acknowledging that "violence is bad for business.
[48] On 30 September 2015, Costilla Sánchez was extradited to the U.S. along with twelve other criminals, including former high-ranking Beltrán Leyva Cartel leader Edgar Valdez Villarreal.
[50] On 26 September 2017, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute cocaine and cannabis, in addition to two counts of assault on federal agents for the standoff in 1999.
[51] On 22 September 2022, Costilla Sánchez was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to pay a forfeiture judgment of $5 million, the amount that he was found to have profited from his involvement in drug trafficking.
[53] 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 La Frontera Chica, an area that encompasses Miguel Alemán, Camargo and Ciudad Mier – directly across the U.S.–Mexico border from Starr County, Texas.
[53] Unconfirmed information released by The Monitor indicated that two leaders of the Rojos, Mejía González and Rafael Cárdenas Vela, teamed up to kill Flores Borrego.
[16] An anonymous source told the magazine that Costilla Sánchez set up his rivals, the Cárdenas Guillén family, to get arrested or killed by the Mexican Navy, consequently allowing him to emerge as the leader of the Gulf Cartel.
[57] The sources stated that before his arrest, Costilla Sánchez was allegedly seeking to forge an alliance with Miguel Treviño Morales (Z-40), one of the leaders of Los Zetas, the former armed wing of the Gulf Cartel.
[57] InSight Crime, however, states that the fact that the whole article relies on a single anonymous source and that there are no voice recordings raises suspicions about the reliability of the story.
The agency does recognize that Costilla Sánchez's ties with the Navy were possible, but indicated that "if his enemies were looking to make life difficult both for him and for the military units operating in Tamaulipas, feeding falsehoods to reporters would be an easy way to do so.
[58] In the United States, he has been charged with 12 counts of drug trafficking and money-laundering and is also wanted for assaulting a federal law enforcement officers in 1999 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.