The Santa Blanca Cartel was a Bolivia-based Mexican drug cartel that was founded by the drug lord Rodrigo Carlos Pérez Morales, better known as "El Sueño", in 2008. The Santa Blanca Cartel's predecessor was founded in Mexico, and Pérez Morales served as a sicario for the gang from the age of 12. After having a vision of the Holy Land a few years later, he partnered with Nidia Flores to move the cartel to the very source of its trafficking, Bolivia. There, he attracted support by writing a new bible dedicated to the Cult of Santa Muerte, and he formally founded the Santa Blanca Cartel in 2008. His cartel became increasingly powerful, building schools and churches and offering jobs for those who followed their leader. El Sueño killed the leaders of Bolivia's other cartels and slowly took over the country, and his connections with key MAS-IPSP politicians helped him gain control of most of Bolivia. From 2017 to 2019, the Santa Blanca Cartel battled the police special oeprations unit La Unidad, and the government ultimately agreed to sign a secret peace treaty with the cartel allowing it to spread its influence in exchange for a cessation of hostilities in Bolivia. By 2019, the Santa Blanca Cartel used a large network of coca fields, laboratories, and hideouts to transform coca leaf into cocaine powder, with Rudolfo Yana supervising production. The cartel also manipulated religion, corrupted education, controlled the elite, and even operated a humanitarian non-governmental organization, and the excommunicated cardinal Gustavo Serrano and DJ Perico supervised the influence operation. Nida Flores handled the smuggling of the drugs abroad with the help of Jose "El Invisible" Vargas. Francisco Ricardo "El Muro" Munguia handled the security wing of the cartel, operating outposts, prisons, camps, and road checkpoints. Under Munguia, the group battled the indigenous Kataris 26 resistance movement.
In 2019, the United States sent DEA agent Ricky Sandoval to infiltrate the cartel and assist Kataris 26, only to be outed as a mole and murdered. On 27 July 2019, the US embassy at La Paz was bombed, resulting in the injury of two US Marine Corps guards. In response, the United States launched Operation Kingslayer, a joint operation by the CIA, DEA, and JSOC aimed at the dismantling of the cartel. In conjunction with the rebels, a four-man team from the 5th Special Forces Group called the Kingslayer Team took down the cartel's operations and captured El Sueño, who was extradited to Mexico. The remnants of the cartel in Bolivia fragmented into the Nueva Frontera Cartel, Barrio Familia, and Los Hijos del Sueño during El Sueño's captivity. El Sueño himself founded the El Renacimiento Cartel on his release from prison, recruiting Honduran and Salvadoran gangsters into his new gang and moving to Peru to take over another country.