An alleged Gulf Cartel leader and at least three other alleged members of the same criminal organization were arrested in Tamaulipas this week.
The National Guard (GN) said Wednesday that members of a special forces unit, “in coordination with the Federal Attorney General’s Office,” arrested Antonio Guadalupe Pérez Domínguez in the municipality of Ciudad Madero on Tuesday.
Pérez, known as “El Escorpión 17”, is the alleged leader of “The Scorpions” (Los Escorpiones), the armed wing of the notoriously violent Gulf Cartel.
The faction was linked to the kidnapping of four U.S. citizens in the border city of Matamoros in March 2023. Two of the victims were killed.
The GN said that Pérez was located in the Playa Miramar area of Ciudad Madero and transferred to the maximum-security Altiplano federal prison in Almoloya de Juárez, México state, after his arrest.
The security force said that the arrest will help “weaken a criminal organization with a presence in the state of Tamaulipas, limiting its financial activities, its trafficking of undocumented people and drugs to the United States and its illegal introduction of firearms to national territory.”
The GN said that as a result of the arrest of Pérez, raids were carried out at four properties in Matamoros and four people were detained. It also said that firearms, ammunition and tactical gear were seized at the properties.
At least three of the four people detained in Matamoros were members of “The Cyclones” (Los Ciclones) faction of the Gulf Cartel, according to a Milenio newspaper report.
Citing information it received from the Ministry of National Defense, Milenio said that “three operators” of the Cyclones faction were detained on Wednesday morning in Matamoros, located opposite Brownsville, Texas.
It identified those detained as Daniel Isidoro, Leonardo Daniel and Perla Guadalupe.
Daniel Isidoro, known as “El Dany,” is the second most important man in the “criminal structure” of the Cyclones, Milenio said. José Alberto García Vilano, the faction’s presumed leader, was detained in Nuevo León in January.
Leonardo Daniel, known as “El Pepino” (The Cucumber), is the chief of the Cyclones’ communications network, Milenio said. Perla Guadalupe, known as “La Cuñada” (The Sister-in-Law), is the faction’s “main financial operator” in Matamoros, Milenio said.
The three alleged members of the Cyclones were also transferred to the Altiplano federal prison, the penitentiary from which Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán escaped via a tunnel in 2015. They face a range of organized crime charges including drug trafficking, weapons possession and extortion.
According to Insight Crime, the Gulf Cartel is “one of the oldest and most powerful of Mexico’s criminal groups but has lost territory and influence in recent years to its rivals, including its former enforcer wing, the Zetas.”
“… The group has split into many different factions, each vying for control over Tamaulipas’ extensive borderlands,” says the think tank and media organization.
