Mexican federal authorities re-arrested a top cartel boss who used his political connections and social activism to hide his criminal empire. The cartel figure was arrested in 2022, but with the help of state officials, was able to be released from prison until his capture this weekend.
Mexico’s federal government has not released any information about the arrest of Octavio “El Tarzan” Leal Moncada. His name appears in the country’s National Detention Registry. His followers have already threatened to block highways and carry out various criminal acts if their leader is not released.
As Breitbart Texas reported, Leal Moncada is the founding leader of the Pedro J. Mendez Armed Wing, a self-described self-defense group that is in fact a faction of the Gulf Cartel. Moncada’s faction has been linked to murders, kidnappings, human smuggling, and large-scale fuel theft schemes.
In July 2022, Tamaulipas state authorities arrested Moncada in connection with a double murder in the city of Hidalgo.
Mexico’s Codigo Magenta posted a video from March where Leal Moncada is at a public speaking event, where he claims to have killed a former mayor of Hidalgo, who was a political rival and also his nephew. In the video, he claims that if he were to show up again, “We will shoot him again.”
As Breitbart Texas reported, Moncada and his Gulf Cartel cell played a role in the 2022 Tamaulipas elections, where they pressured and threatened locals to vote for candidates of the MORENA Party, including current Governor Americo Villarreal. By November 2022, after Villarreal had taken office, a judge in Tamaulipas released Moncada from prison. He had been free until his arrest this past weekend.
Breitbart Texas first reported on Moncada in 2015, when his name surfaced in a series of recordings of conversations between Gulf Cartel bosses where they talked about using Moncada to plant car bombs to target law enforcement.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s 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 News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.