Rafael Cárdenas Vela

Who is Rafael Cárdenas Vela?

Rafael Cárdenas Vela is a former Mexican drug lord and high-ranking lieutenant of the Gulf Cartel. He is the nephew of Antonio and Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, two men who at one time led the criminal organization.

Born and raised in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Cárdenas Vela began his criminal career in the year 2000, where he served as the regional boss of the Gulf Cartel in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. During his time in power, he reportedly bribed and threatened local leaders and policemen in order allow the Gulf Cartel to introduce and move narcotics around the municipality freely. Nine years later, Cárdenas Vela was promoted by his superiors to the Río Bravo, Tamaulipas corridor, directly south across the U.S-Mexico border. In Río Bravo, he reportedly supervised cocaine and marijuana shipments heading to the United States and oversaw human smuggling rings.

The death of his uncle Antonio on November 2010 created an internal division in the Gulf Cartel, but Cárdenas Vela managed to become the regional boss of the cartel in Matamoros on March 2011. Amid the turmoil, Cárdenas Vela began to have problems with the drug lord Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez and his henchmen. Fearing for his own life, Cárdenas Vela fled to the state of Texas and managed the operatives of the cartel behind the scenes. But his career came to an end on 20 October 2011 when federal agents arrested him in Port Isabel, Texas.