A top leader with Mexico’s Gulf Cartel is expected to face a judge in the near future for his role in violent crimes and even a massacre in the border city of Reynosa.
Known in the criminal underworld as “La Droga or Ciclon 89,” Oscar Antonio Lopez Sandoval is the chief regional enforcer for the Matamoros faction of the Gulf Cartel and is second-in-command for the sect. Tamaulipas authorities arrested him on Sunday night during a raid in the border city and then moved him in preparation for his hearing before a state judge on charges including murder, top law enforcement sources tell Breitbart Texas.
The raid took place on Sunday night in the beach area known as El Mezquital, where Lopez Sandoval was fishing without his security detail. Special police officers arrested his fishing party.
The raid allowed authorities to get him out of the city before Gulf Cartel forces could intervene. Mexican state and security forces escalated patrol operations around Matamoros in the aftermath.
About an hour after the arrest, Gulf Cartel gunmen had several small clashes with security forces in Matamoros, primarily on the south and east sides of town. The areas are widely used by the criminal organization for stash houses.
La Droga or “Comandante Droga” had been a long-time leader of the Tiburones strike team of the Gulf Cartel which operated out of the Nuevo Progreso and was behind clashes in recent months. One of those took place in June when gunmen from the Matamoros faction carried out an incursion into Reynosa and killed 15 innocent bystanders. Since then, three commanders including Droga were identified as being responsible for the massacre. One of the commanders died in late July in an apparent execution carried out by the Gulf Cartel.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza”, “Francisco Morales” and “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas.
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