"El Güero" Palma: the narco who survived the prison waiting for "El Chapo"

He was arrested by chance and released from a prison in the United States for good behavior. Hector "El Güero" Palma Salazar was considered one of the most violent drug traffickers in Mexico in the 80s and 90s and was a close friend of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

He was born in La Noria de Abajo, in the municipality of Mocorito, Sinaloa and he only studied primary because of the poverty of his family. The crime soon reached his life, and in his adolescence, he had already stolen cars. He attracted the attention of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the largest cocaine and marijuana drug trafficker in Mexico, also known as Jefes El Jefe or El Padrino, he hired her as a hitman in the 70s and then he ordered the smuggling of cocaine to Sonora.

A young Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán He also worked for Felix Gallardo in the Guadalajara cartel. He became a close friend of "El Güero"accused of remaining with a cargo of drugs, his boss was quick to take revenge.

Towards the end of the eighties, "El Güero" and Guzmán Loera progressed by leaps and bounds towards the first place in the world of drug trafficking with the cartel of Sinaloa, but soon the worst blow was taken to Palma.

"El Padrino", who reportedly ordered the killing of the children and the wife of "El Güero", to whom he sent the head of his beloved. The murder committed by the Colombian narco leader, Rafael Clavel Moreno, of the group Felix Gallardo, deprived Palma Salazar of anonymity, due to the creation of an unprecedented battle between criminals.

On the other hand, he ordered the badbadination of nine friends and relatives of Felix Gallardo. Some bodies carried multiple blows, skull fracture and bursting of the viscera.

It was known that the arms of "El Güero" were covered with gold and shining. I've added the figure of a palm tree, made of emeralds.

A small plane that transported it from Ciudad Obregón (Sonora) to Guadalajara Jalisco collapsed. Convalescing after the accident, the military discovered it in June 1995 thanks to its remarkable and striking Colt Super 83 pistol.

The Mexican authorities sentenced him to seven years in prison at the Puente Grande High Security Prison, Jalisco, for possession of cocaine, drug trafficking and organized crime.

At Puente Grande Penitentiary, he met his friend "El Chapo" – who had been apprehended in 1993 – until January 2001, when Guzmán Loera escaped.

The prosecutor accused Palma of being one of the accomplices of the escape; however, he was acquitted of this charge years later.

The "Rocky Mountain Alcatraz"

In 2007, Palma was extradited to the United States and convicted of trafficking cocaine in 2008. He was first sent to a prison in Phoenix, Arizona, where he had contact with others. detainees. But when sentenced to 16 years in prison and five years on probation, he was sent to Colorado State Prison in the central United States.

It was about ADX Florence, the safest maximum security prison in the country, in which Guzmán Loera could serve a life sentence.

The place is famous for the view that the mountains of Fremont County offer. However, the penitentiary center is designed so that prisoners can never appreciate them.

"The worst of the worst of the vast network of US prisons usually ends with ADX, also known as La Alcatraz de las Rocosas, "said former prison director Robert Hood, in a special report for the chain CNN

In this place, Palma has never seen other inmates. He spent 23 hours a day in his cell and at 24 hours he could see the sun in the sky, through a window on the ceiling. He did not speak English and the guards did not speak Spanish, so "for long periods of time I did not have anyone to talk to," his lawyer Frank Ragen said, according to the Mexican newspaper. Millennium.

Among the detainees in this prison are Eric Rudolph, an American terrorist responsible for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; Zacarias Moussaoui, Former Al Qaeda member who participated in the planning of the September 11 attacks; Ramzi Yousef, considered the "mastermind" of the attack against the Twin Towers and Harvard graduate Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber), sent between 1978 and 1995 16 bombing letters to various universities in the country.

ADX Florence has been criticized by human rights organizations because of their conditions of isolation.

Palma has served 9 years out of 16 of his prison term for drug trafficking. The US authorities felt that he had behaved well during his incarceration and released him on June 15, 2016.

"El Güero" Palma He left the prison at age 56 with inguinal hernia, hemorrhoids, poor vision and several missing teeth., said a Mexican media outlet. He was the second leader of a cartel released from an American prison. The first was Francisco Arellano Felix, in 2008.

He was deported and apprehended in Mexico for the murder of an officer and his escort in the 1990s. He remains at Altiplano Penitentiary, in the State of Mexico.