Fausto "El Chapo" Isidro Meza Flores (born 19 June 1982) was a leader of the Mexican Beltran Leyva Cartel and Los Mazatlecos during the Mexican Drug War. He was a major rival of El Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel during the early 2010s.
Biography[]
Fausto Isidro Meza Flores was born in 1982, and he worked for the Juarez Cartel boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes during the 1990s before joining the new Beltran Leyva Cartel in 1997. He proved to be a skilled hitman, and he remained loyal to the cartel even after Edgar Valdez Villarreal's betrayal and Arturo Beltran Leyva's death. Meza became the leader of the Los Mazatlecos enforcer wing of the Beltran Leyva organization, and they were responsible for smuggling large quantities of meth, heroin, marijuana, and cocaine from Nayarit and Sinaloa.
War with El Chapo[]
Isidro during the 2012 Los Mochis shootout
From 2010, he became one of the leading rivals of the Sinaloa Cartel, and, in 2012, Alfredo Beltran Leyva gave Meza his mansion and the leadership of the remnants of his cartel in exchange for a promise to kill El Chapo. He took over the border town of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas from El Chapo's cartel, provoking a violent reaction from the Sinaloa Cartel. El Chapo and his gang assaulted the Beltran Leyva stronghold of Los Mochis, resulting in a massive shootout during which El Chapo was wounded, but Meza Flores was forced to flee and allow El Chapo's men to recapture the turf. Soon after, El Chapo bought out all of the municipal police chiefs, who turned against Meza Flores. Meza Flores retaliated by attacking El Chapo's businesses, starting with an attack on a Sinaloa Cartel deposit in Nogales, Sonora, and continuing with the interrogation and murder of the bodyguard of Sonora governor Mario Lopez Valdez, who was taped confessing his governor's deep ties to El Chapo. "El Chapo Isidro" outlasted El Chapo Guzman, and, by 2020, the FBI offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to his capture.
Gallery[]
