His brother was the Gulf Cartel's regional leader in Matamoros and Reynosa under the tutelage of Cárdenas Guillén. El Karis was recruited in the Gulf Cartel thanks to his brother Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa (alias El Goyo) in 2003, when the cartel was fighting over the control of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas with the Sinaloa Cartel. El Karis's death marked one of the earliest conflicts that would eventually result in the separation of the Gulf Cartel and their armed wing, Los Zetas, in 2010.Īfter the Gulf Cartel's supreme leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén was arrested in 2003 and extradited to the United States in 2007, the control of the criminal organization was handed over to Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez (alias El Coss), an ex-policeman from Tamaulipas to Antonio Cárdenas Guillén (alias Tony Tormenta), his brother and to Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, who left the Mexican Army special forces in 1998. The death toll of the shootout is virtually unknown, but eyewitnesses suggest that at least 12 people were killed that day in Reynosa. Reportedly, Los Zetas boss Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano had sent several of his men to Reynosa that same day to kill him for taking the control of Reynosa from the hands of Los Zetas. El Karis took the lead of the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa following the arrest of Jaime González Durán, a leader of Los Zetas drug cartel, in November 2008.Įl Karis he was killed in a prolonged gun fight with Mexican law enforcement officers a few months later on 17 February 2009. He was the brother of the drug lord Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, another high-ranking drug trafficker who worked under the tutelage of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the former top leader of the cartel.
Héctor Manuel Sauceda Gamboa (died 17 February 2009), commonly referred to by his alias El Karis, was a suspected Mexican drug trafficker and high-ranking leader of the Gulf Cartel, a drug trafficking organization based in Tamaulipas.