Sinaloa Cartel's Hector Luis Palma, AKA 'El Guero', Could Soon Be Released From Jail in Mexico
One of the founders of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, Hector Luis Palma, could reportedly soon be released from imprisonment in Mexico.
Mexico Daily Post reported that a Mexican tribunal is close to granting Palma, also known as "El Guero," a legal remedy that would ensure his release from a maximum-security prison near Mexico City.
Palma has been jailed in both the United States and Mexico, with his first arrest dating back to 1978 in Arizona for drug trafficking charges. He was then sentenced to eight years in prison.
He was then released from the U.S. prison, only to come home and experience the brutal murder of his family by a rival drug kingpin. It then led to a campaign of violence to retaliate against the deaths.
In 1995, the Mexican military arrested El Guero once again after he survived a plane crash. He was extradited to the U.S. and spent around two decades in the Atwater Federal Prison before he was sent back to Mexico for the trial of the murder of two police officers.
Lawyers for Palma argued that the key witnesses of the case were coerced to testify against their client.
Hector Luis Palma Imprisonment
A statement from the Mexican Attorney General's Office noted that U.S. authorities handed over Palma in Matamoros.
The Mercury News reported in 2016 that the Sinaloa Cartel drug lord was flown to Mexico City on Wednesday and was transported to the Altiplano prison outside the capital, which was the same prison that El Chapo escaped from in 2015.
El Chapo, known by his real name Joaquin Guzman, was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was known for strategically using his "narco tunnels" in the transport of illegal narcotics and his escape from imprisonment.
The witness against Palma accused him of killing a deputy police chief who apparently worked for the Sinaloa Cartel but decided to switch loyalties to the Arellano Felix brothers of the Tijuana Cartel.
The police officer was allegedly killed in retaliation.
Palma served more than nine years at the high-security prison in Atwater, Merced County.
Who is Hector Luis Palma?
The Sinaloa Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel had a ferocious rivalry between them. It became even more intense when El Chapo and his lieutenant El Guero tried to kill Ramon Arellano Felix at a nightclub, known as "Christine" in Puerto Vallarta. The Sinaloa Cartel head figures failed and killed six others instead.
The Arellano Felix brothers were then quick to retaliate and ordered a hitman to seduce El Guero's wife while infiltrating the cartel, according to El Pais.
The hitman then killed his wife and sent her head to El Guero in a refrigerated box. The Sinaloa Cartel leader's children were then thrown off a 150-meter-high bridge in Venezuela and received a videotape of their deaths.
Palma's life was reenacted in the hit Netflix series "Narcos," even including the death of his family in the dramatization of the lives of Sinaloa Cartel members.
READ MORE: Sinaloa Cartel Founder' El Guero' Is Still in Custody of Mexican Authorities
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Mary Webber
WATCH: Detienen a Héctor Luis "El Güero Palma" al salir del Altiplano - from Imagen Radio