Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén was returned to Mexico after serving his sentence in the US and was quickly rearrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.

There was nervousness about the imminent return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the formidable The Gulf Cartel in northeastern Mexico before he was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.

The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed on its social media accounts on Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in US custody, the majority of his 25-year prison sentence in the US. He is a Mexican citizen so he was probably deported.

“The successful removal of Osiel Cardenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” said Chicago Field Office Enforcement and Removal Director Samuel Olson. statement.

A Mexican federal official, who was not authorized to be named, said Cárdenas Guillén was immediately taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money laundering charges.

The official said Cárdenas Guillén is being held in the country’s maximum-security Altiplano prison, west of Mexico City.

The Homeland Security Research Service released photos of a pot-bellied, bald, bespectacled Cárdenas Guillén being escorted by two police officers in helmets and body armor as he is being carried across a border bridge.

The image contrasts with the drug lords’ fearsome reputation for violence in Mexico.

Nicknamed “El Mata Amigos” (“The Killer Friends”), he recruited former Mexican special forces soldiers to form his personal guard. The former head of the Gulf Cartel was known for his brutality. He created the most bloodthirsty gang of killers Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, who routinely killed migrants and innocent people.

The 57-year-old native of the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars through the Gulf Cartel based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.

After his arrest in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, he was extradited in 2007 to the United States, where he sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $50 million.

At that time, the Ministry of Justice alleged that Cardenas Guillen threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy who was working as an undercover ICE agent because he refused to deliver nearly 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.