Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez (born 6 January 1971) is a former Mexican drug lord and top leader of the criminal drug trafficking organization known as the Gulf Cartel. He was among Mexico's most-wanted drug lords, until his arrest in 2012.
He joined the ranks of the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s after he had served as a policeman in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Under the tutelage of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, Costilla Sánchez became a lieutenant for the cartel and started controlling several drug trafficking activities for the organization. In 1999, two U.S. federal agents were stopped at gunpoint in Matamoros by several gunmen of the cartel while conducting an investigation. Among the dozen heavily armed men were Cárdenas Guillén and Costilla Sánchez. After the tense standoff, the agents persuaded the gunmen to let them go, but Costilla Sánchez and the other cartel members earned a U.S. indictment.
When Cárdenas Guillén was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2003 and 2007 respectively, Costilla Sánchez took the control of the cartel along with Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, who was later killed in a gunbattle in November 2010. Amid the power struggles, Los Zetas separated from the cartel to work independently initially working in tandem with the gulf cartel as an organisation known as la compania, until in 2010 going to war transforming northeastern Mexico into a "war zone" with daily confrontations and gruesome assassinations.
Costilla Sánchez was arrested by the Mexican marines in the city of Tampico, Tamaulipas, on 12 September 2012. The Gulf Cartel, however, was suffering from an infighting by the time of his arrest.
On 16 September 2022, Costilla Sánchez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana into the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to pay a forfeiture judgement of $5 million.
Criminal career Costilla Sánchez was born on 6 January 1971 in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas; he is the son of a woman who worked as the principal of a middle school in Matamoros. At the age of 21, he became a municipal police officer in Matamoros and worked from 1992 to 1995, where he became familiar with the drug trade. Costilla Sánchez then left the police and formed a kidnapping ring called "Los Sierra."
He joined the works of the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s and become a lieutenant during the reign of then-leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén. The Gulf Cartel is responsible for the importation and distribution of thousands of kilograms of cocaine and marijuana into the United States annually. After the arrest of the cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, Costilla Sánchez took control and became partner with Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, Heriberto Lazcano and Héctor Manuel Sauceda Gamboa (El Karis). Sauceda was killed in a gun battle with the Federal Police on 17 February 2009, and Heriberto Lazcano transformed Los Zetas into his own cartel in 2010, becoming rival to the Gulf Cartel.
Costilla Sánchez is one of a number of high-ranking members of the Gulf Cartel who has been indicted in the United States for drug trafficking activities. Costilla Sánchez has also been indicted for threatening U.S. law enforcement officials in November 1999. In that incident, FBI and DEA agents in Mexico were forcibly stopped at gunpoint by a group of heavily armed men, allegedly including Costilla Sánchez and other key members of the Gulf Cartel. Costilla Sánchez and the other cartel members were said to have pointed AK-47 rifles at the U.S. federal agents and threatened to kill them. After a tense standoff, the FBI and DEA agents were allowed to leave.
When Osiel was arrested in 2003, Costilla Sánchez joined the drug lord's brother, Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, in running the Gulf Cartel's operations. The power struggle after Osiel's extradition in 2007 prompted for Los Zetas, the mercenary gang formed by ex-commandos of the Mexican Army and the former armed wing of the cartel, to separate and form their own criminal organization. Both groups officially went to war in early 2010, after a Zeta leader was assassinated allegedly under orders of Costilla Sánchez. The fight between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas transformed northeastern Mexico into a "war zone" with daily gunfights, decapitations, and other gruesome slayings. After the death of Antonio in a gunfight with the Mexican Marines on 5 November 2010, Costilla Sánchez took full control of the Gulf Cartel and began directing the daily drug trafficking activities of the organization.
The recent fights between Los Metros and Los Rojos, the two subgroups within the Gulf Cartel, were reportedly caused by Costilla Sánchez, who set up his rivals to get arrested or killed by the government. Among other charges, Costilla Sánchez is accused of being involved in the 2004 assassination of the journalist Francisco Arratia Saldierna, who covered drug trafficking and organized crime reports in Matamoros. In addition, the Proceso magazine alleges that Costilla Sánchez had some connections with high-ranking military officials in the Mexican Armed Forces between 2011 and 2012.
Standoff with U.S. agents On 9 November 1999, two U.S. agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were threatened at gunpoint by Cárdenas Guillén, Costilla Sánchez, and approximately fifteen of his henchmen in Matamoros. The two agents travelled to Matamoros with an informant to gather intelligence on the operations of the Gulf Cartel. Cárdenas Guillén demanded the agents and the informant to get out of their vehicle, but they refused to obey his orders. The incident escalated as Cárdenas Guillén threatened to kill them if they did not comply and as his gunmen prepared to shoot. The agents tried to reason with him that killing U.S. federal agents would bring a massive manhunt from the U.S. government. Cárdenas Guillén eventually let them go and threatened to kill them if they ever returned to his home turf.
The standoff triggered a massive law enforcement effort to crackdown the leadership structure of the Gulf Cartel. Both the Mexican and U.S. government increased their efforts to apprehend Cárdenas Guillén. Prior to the standoff, he was regarded as a minor player in the international drug trade, but this incident catapulted his reputation and made him one of the most-wanted criminals. The FBI and the DEA mounted numerous charges against him and issued a US$2 million bounty for his arrest.
Gulf-Zeta cartels split In the late 1990s, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, then leader of the Gulf Cartel, began recruiting members of the Mexican Army to protect his territory, personnel, and drug trafficking operations. These original deserters, who were known as Los Zetas, came from the Special Forces squadron of the army, arguably the best trained branch of the Mexican military. Upon the arrest and extradition of Cárdenas Guillén in 2003 and 2007 respectively, Los Zetas strengthen its role in the Gulf Cartel, but managed to retain its alliance. Nonetheless, that alliance lasted until early 2010, when disagreements reached a turning point. On 18 January 2010, several members of the Gulf Cartel kidnapped Víctor Peña Mendoza, a leader of Los Zetas nicknamed Concord 3 and a close associate and friend of Miguel Treviño Morales, alias Z-40. When he was held captive, Peña Mendoza was asked to switch alliances and join the Gulf Cartel, but he refused, earning a beating and an execution, presumably carried out by Samuel Flores Borrego.
Treviño Morales heard about the incident and issued an ultimatum to Flores Borrego and Costilla Sánchez:
Both of the Gulf Cartel leaders ignored the command, and Treviño Morales did not wait to avenge the death of his friend. On 30 January 2010, Treviño Morales kidnapped and murdered 16 Gulf Cartel members in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, marking the start of the cartel war between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Veracruz that has left thousands of people killed. Los Zetas used violent and intimidation tactics to expand, emerging with a notorious reputation as Mexico's most violent drug trafficking organization. Through these tactics, it has managed to take control of most of the territories "owned" by the Gulf Cartel where they had once essentially served as a single organization.
PRI candidate assassination On the morning of 28 June 2010, Rodolfo Torre Cantú, the leading candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for the Tamaulipas state elections, was heading to the airport in Ciudad Victoria to close his campaign in Valle Hermoso and Matamoros, Tamaulipas six days before the elections. While heading to the airport, Torre Cantú's convoy was ambushed by armed assailants, killing the candidate and six other people who were in his entourage. His death marked the highest-profile murder in the Mexican drug war and the highest-profile assassination in Mexico since the death of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the PRI presidential candidate for the 1994 elections. By 2011 and into 2012, the Mexican authorities still did not have solid evidence to prosecute Torre Cantú's assassins.
Nonetheless, Costilla Sánchez was linked to Torre Cantú's assassination by the PGR and the DEA agencies on 20 September 2012. Reportedly, Torre Cantú was killed by an armed squad directly linked to Costilla Sánchez for refusing to protect the cartel's investments that allowed money laundering from drug proceeds. Tamaulipas' former governor, Tomás Yarrington, has also been linked to Torre Cantú's death by the DEA since February 2012.
Arrest The Mexican Navy arrested Costilla Sánchez on 12 September 2012 at the residential Lomas de Rosales neighborhood in Tampico, Tamaulipas without firing a single bullet. Around 30 marines chased a convoy of gunmen that led to the house where Costilla Sánchez was staying. Hours before the arrest, five men working for Costilla Sánchez were apprehended in Río Bravo, Tamaulipas. Costilla Sánchez was presented on camera on the morning of 13 September 2012, handcuffed and wearing a long-sleeve shirt. Ten bodyguards of Costilla Sánchez were also arrested during the operation. Ernesto Banda Chaires, one of the detainees, is believed to be the regional boss of the cartel in Tampico. In the Wednesday arrest, the Mexican authorities confiscated several assault rifles, pistols encrusted with jewelry, and a number of expensive-looking watches. When asked if he had anything to say about his criminal charges and if he had a lawyer, Costilla Sánchez shook his head. His arrest came a few days after the apprehension of Mario Cárdenas Guillén, the leader of one of factions in the cartel. Moreover, Costilla Sánchez is currently detained at the installations of the SIEDO, Mexico's intelligence agency.
Costilla Sánchez was an evasive capo who preferred to stay low-profile. Only two photographs of him were ever made public prior to his arrest.
It is likely that Costilla Sánchez will be extradited to the United States, raising political implications for the top politicians in the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz who have been accused of taking bribes from the Gulf Cartel. Among them is Tomás Yarrington, the former governor of Tamaulipas who is now a fugitive. If the testimonies end up being damaging, President Enrique Peña Nieto will have to take steps to clean up the image of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for 71 years and was tainted with an image of corruption. In addition, with Costilla Sánchez's capture, the Gulf Cartel appears to be extremely weakened and the stage is set for Mexico's two largest criminal organizations – the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas – to fight for the turf of the Gulf Cartel. This will be troubling for the government, which has vowed to reduce the drug violence that has left more than 55,000 dead in six years.