American officials are offering up to $5 million dollars in rewards for the capture of 10 alleged leaders of the Gulf Cartel and its enforcement arm Los Zetas.
The U.S. State Department’s Narcotics Rewards Program made the announcement on Monday morning.
The program named eight alleged Gulf Cartel leaders as well as two alleged leaders of Los Zetas.
Rewards of up to $5 million each are offered for information leading to their arrests.
The 10 men are all Mexican nationals wanted in various drug trafficking cases in the United States.
The Gulf Cartel leaders were identified as:
- Heriberto Lazcano-Lazcano
- Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen
- Miguel Treviño-Morales
- Mario Ramirez-Treviño
- Gilberto Barragan-Balderas
- Juan Reyes Mejia-Gonzalez
- Alejandro Treviño-Morales
- Samuel Flores-Borrego
The Los Zetas leaders were identified as:
- Jesus Enrique Rejon-Aguilar
- Aurelio Cano-Flores
The Gulf Cartel controls most of the cocaine and marijuana trafficking through the Matamoros, Mexico corridor to the United States.
Los Zetas evolved from a small group of deserters from the Mexican Special Forces into a ruthless security force for the entire Gulf Cartel and have become a significant drug trafficking organization in their own right.
State Department officials said the Narcotics Rewards Program started in the 1980s and has paid over $44 million to bring major drug traffickers to justice.
The program used to publicized rewards to capture of all three of the original Gulf Cartel leaders: Juan Garcia-Abrego, Oscar Malherbe-De Leon and Osiel Cardenas-Guillen.
Anyone with information about these fugitives is asked to call the U.S. Marshals Service at (877) 926-8332.
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