Convicted Mexican cartel chief Jesus Hector “El Güero” Palma Salazar arrived in Mexico Wednesday from a California prison and is moving to the prison El Chapo tunneled out of.
As soon as El Güero was handed off to Mexican authorities, he reportedly asked, “Am I being detained?” to which an agent with the Mexican Attorney General’s Office said “No sir,” before sending the drug lord to prison, according to Univision.
The cartel boss had been in California prison for nine years after his 1995 arrest in Mexico, until he was scheduled for release June 11. El Güero was widely expected to return to a life of crime and become one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, which he co-founded with El Chapo in the 1980s.
Mexican authorities justified the arrest on the grounds that he is wanted for two murders he allegedly committed in the Mexican state of Nayarit in 1995. One of El Güero’s alleged victims is a corrupt state police officer.
The notorious drug lord is said to have ordered multiple murders as a cartel leader, including the 1993 slaying of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, who died in a hail of machine gun bullets at Guadalajara Airport. It is suspected El Güero developed his brutal methods after the 1989 killings of his wife and children at the hands of cartel rivals.
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