Juan Nepomuceno Guerra (18 July 1915 – 12 July 2001) was a Mexican smuggler and drug trafficker who founded the Gulf Cartel in the 1930s with the goal of smuggling alcohol into the United States. He never spent more than a few hours in jail during his lifetime, and he is hailed as the "Godfather of Mexican crime".
Biography[]
Juan Nepomuceno Guerra was born on 18 July 1915 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and he began to smuggle alcohol into the United States in the 1930s during Prohibition. He later diversified to other smuggling operations, including contraband; his nephew Juan Garcia Abrego would use Nepomuceno's connections to ship cocaine into the border states, and they would be shipped as far as New York and Illinois from there. The old man never served more than a day in jail for his crimes, despite his founding of the Gulf Cartel, the oldest and one of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels.
Later career[]
Guerra in 1986
Nepomuceno Guerra lived a quiet life and was respected by his local community, and he was hesitant to expand into the cocaine business as a partner of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. However, in 1986, Felix convinced Guerra and his Gulf Cartel to join his Guadalajara Cartel federation so that Felix could monopolize the drug trade in Mexico and force the Colombian Cali Cartel to renegotiate its deal with Guadalajara with terms more amenable to Felix Gallardo, namely paying Guadalajara in product rather than cash. However, Nepomuceno secretly made a deal with Cali representative Pacho Herrera to traffick the Colombians' cocaine himself, cutting his ties with Felix due to his lack of faith that Felix would remain true to their partnership; he cited Felix's frequent betrayals of his associates (the most recent being Juan Matta-Ballesteros) as one reason, and also because he wondered how long he would have lasted after Felix got what he wanted from the Colombians. After Felix threatened to murder him in an intimidating phone call, Guerra decided to go to war with Guadalajara, and he had his hitmen launch a (failed) assassination attempt on Felix shortly after his return from meeting with Herrera in Panama. He also backed his old friend Carlos Salinas de Gortari's 1988 presidential bid, defeating Felix's hopes of Juan Arevalo Gardoqui being elected. Nepomuceno would die at the old age of 85 in 2001, a free man; in 2015, a street in a working-class area of Reynosa would be named for him.
Gallery[]
