REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The governor of the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas honored the Gulf Cartel with great fanfare when he cut the ribbon to a newly paved street bearing the name of its founder, Juan Nepomuceno Guerra.
The honoring of the ruthless criminal organization took place this week when Tamaulipas governor Egidio Torre Cantu travelled to this Mexican border city for a series of events that included cutting the ribbon on various newly paved streets in the lower-income areas of the city.
The governor’s visit was praised locally by the Reynosa news outlets and by the Tamaulipas government, which issued news releases about Torre Cantu’s visit, the unveiling of newly paved streets, and other events in the area. What the news release did not mention was the name of one of the streets, Juan N. Guerra.
Torre Cantu, alongside the Reynosa mayor Jose “Pepe” Elias Leal, appear in a government propaganda video being cheered by the locals as they cut the ribbon in the streets, however the video also didn’t show the name of the street.
Juan Nepomuceno Guerra was a Matamoros businessman who died in 2001 of natural causes, and is credited with building a criminal smuggling empire that later evolved into the Gulf Cartel.
Guerra began smuggling liquor and tobacco in the 1930’s and ended up controlling all the smuggling activity and local bars in the border city of Matamoros.
While the Gulf Cartel is now known as a crime syndicate responsible for drug trafficking, human smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, and senseless violence, in Guerra’s time his group stayed out of the drug trade and kept violence to a minimum.
Torre Cantu’s honoring of the late crime boss comes just days before, as Breitbart Texas previously reported, U.S. federal prosecutors announced that they had obtained an indictment against former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernandez, accusing him of laundering bribes from businessmen and from Los Zetas. Hernandez is considered a fugitive by the DEA.
Hernandez is the second Tamaulipas governor to face criminal charges; former governor Tomas Yarrington is considered a fugitive by Homeland Security Investigations. Yarrington is wanted on a series of charges accusing him of not only money laundering and laundering conspiracy, but also of drug trafficking and drug trafficking conspiracy, accusing him or working with the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva cartel.
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