Héctor Luis Palma Salazar (born April 29, 1960), better known as “El Güero Palma”, is a Mexican former drug trafficker and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael Zambada García. After the brutal murder of his family on the orders of his boss Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Palma committed a series of brutal crimes to avenge his lost. Palma was arrested on June 23, 1995 and extradited to the United States, where he served a prison sentence until June 2016. He was subsequently deported back to Mexico and charged with double murder for killing two Nayarit police officers that year. 1995. Palma is currently incarcerated in the Altiplano Prison, near Mexico City.
Early life and career
Jesús Héctor Luis Palma Salazar was born in Noria de Abajo, Mocorito, Sinaloa, on April 29, 1960. He started his life of crime as a car thief and eventually worked as a gunman for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. under the umbrella of the Guadalajara Cartel. Palma rose through the ranks and, along with Abelardo “El Lobito” Retamoza Machado, eventually became a co-leader of the cartel. He was associated with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael Zambada García.
After the loss of a large shipment of cocaine, which was attributed to El Chapo and Palma, El Lobito Retamoza was murdered in 1988, but Palma was spared. After El Lobito’s death, Palma contacted and formed an alliance with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Palma seceded from the group, which was handed over to Felix Gallardo’s cousins in Tijuana, who later formed the Tijuana Cartel (also known as the Arellano Félix Organization). Palma, along with a Venezuelan human trafficker named Rafael Enrique Clavel, the former boyfriend of Palma’s sister Minerva Palma, began operating their own cartel.
First arrest and murder of family
In 1978, Palma was arrested in Arizona for drug trafficking and sentenced to eight years in prison in the US. Upon his release, he discovered that his wife, Guadalupe Leija Serrano, had run off with Clavel, taking her and Palma’s two children with her.
Clavel forced Guadalupe to withdraw $7 million from a bank account, later beheaded her and sent her head back to Palma. The two young children, Jesús (5 years old) and Nataly (4 years old), were taken to Venezuela and thrown from a bridge called ‘Puente de la Concordia’, located in the town of San Cristóbal, Táchira, about 40 km from the border. with Colombia.
Shortly thereafter, Clavel began working for the Tijuana Cartel. In retaliation, Palma executed Gallardo’s lawyer and Clavel’s three children. Clavel would later be arrested and soon murdered in prison by a prisoner on Palma’s orders.
Palma returned to human trafficking, this time within the Sinaloa Cartel, sharing leadership with Ismael Zambada García (El Mayo) and Joaquin Guzmán Loera (El Chapo).
Second Arrest
Palma was arrested on June 23, 1995, after a twelve-seat Lear jet he was flying to attend a wedding party made an emergency landing. He was traveling from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, to Guadalajara, Jalisco, when the plane was diverted and unable to find a new runway in time. Palma survived the emergency landing and was later arrested by Mexican military officers; he initially evaded capture by traveling in full uniform as an officer of the Federal Judicial Police (PJF), complete with identification and an armed caravan of PJF personnel.
After serving nineteen years in Atwater federal prison, Palma was extradited back to Mexico in June 2016, where he was charged with a double murder of police officers in Nayarit in 1995. He is currently incarcerated in the Altiplano Prison, near Mexico City.
On June 2, 2003, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Palma under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (sometimes simply referred to as the Kingpin Act) for his involvement in drug trafficking, along with six other international criminals and three entities. The law banned US citizens and companies from conducting any form of business activity with him and froze virtually all of his assets in the US
Corruption
Palma had managed to burrow into the depths of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police (PJF), evading detection by posing as someone in full uniform, with identification, and traveling in a heavily armed caravan of PJF officers. It was later discovered that he was able to evade capture by staying at the home of the local police commander.
It has been documented that corruption within the police has spread to the justice system. By bribing judges, the Sinaloa cartel has repeatedly evaded prosecution. In 2004, 18 men were arrested in possession of 28 machine guns, 2 handguns, 223 magazines, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 12 grenade launchers, 18 hand grenades, smoke grenades and body armor. The men were released by Judge José Luis Gómez Martínez, who said there was no evidence they were part of a criminal organization.