Mexican State Cops Capture Gulf Cartel Boss Behind Kidnapping, Murder of U.S. Citizens

Mexican state authorities arrested a top leader within the Gulf Cartel who is ultimately responsible for the 2023 kidnapping of four U.S. citizens, where two of them died, last year in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. That cartel boss has been directly responsible for the spread of violence in the northern part of Tamaulipas but managed to avoid capture for a long time due to his ties to the top government officials.

On Thursday afternoon, detectives with the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency (AEI) arrested Juan Alberto “La Kena or Ciclon 19” Garcia Vilano, the leader of the Escorpiones faction of the Gulf Cartel, along with two other men at a luxury store in the ritzy suburb of San Pedro in the Monterrey metropolitan area. The state investigators tracked down the fearsome cartel leader in coordination with the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office since Garcia Vilano is currently wanted in that state on kidnapping charges.

At the time of the arrests, Garcia Vilano was shopping inside the Palacio De Hierro, a luxury department store, when Nuevo Leon state detectives and their Tamaulipas counterparts arrested him and dragged him out of the shopping center in handcuffs. A local shopper recorded the moment when authorities moved la Kena out of the mall and into a convoy of police vehicles before they rushed him to their offices.

Cómo se puede observar en el video sobre la detención de alias “La Kena” no fue ningún grupo especial el que se “aventó el tiro” fue la misma fiscalía de Monterrey en coordinación con la Fuerza Civil, esto nos da entender que fue un operativo relámpago el que se ejecutó tras ser… pic.twitter.com/gMaODQcYMr

— Sin Censura Tamaulipas (@sincensuratamps) January 18, 2024

As Breitbart Texas reported exclusively, the man known as La Kena is the top regional leader for the Gulf Cartel and the man ultimately responsible for the kidnapping of four U.S. citizens in Matamoros in March 2023. In that incident, a group of gunmen from the Gulf Cartel kidnapped the four tourists after a chase through the city where they shot at the victims. During the process, the gunmen killed two of their victims and injured the other two.

Days after the kidnapping garnered international attention, the Gulf Cartel released the victims by leaving them in a stash house. Shortly after, the cartel left a group of tied-up gunmen next to a sign accusing them of having carried out the kidnapping without permission. An exclusive investigation by Breitbart Texas revealed that La Kena and his organization were protected by top government officials at the state and local level and that a top city official in Matamoros, who had been a hitman for the Gulf Cartel, known as El Polaris, had provided the cartel with ambulances to move the victims throughout the city before their release.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.