Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, dies at 80 in a Mexican hospital

The death in Guadalajara

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the Mexican drug trafficker known as "Jefe de Jefes" or "the Godfather", died on Sunday, 15 November 2026, at a hospital in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state in western Mexico. He was 80 years old. The state Secretariat of Public Security said in a brief statement that he had spent two days under medical observation with a guarded prognosis.

The ministry said the medical team had recorded multiple organ failure as the cause of death.

“According to the medical staff in charge, he presented multiple organ failure, which led to his death at around 14:00 hours.”

The death was recorded at about 14:00 local time, which is 20:00 GMT. Accounts differ on where the hospital sits, with one placing it near the city's financial district and another in the Lomas del Country colony. No information has yet been released on where his remains will be buried.

Transfer from prison

On Friday, 13 November, he was moved urgently from the Puente Grande prison to a hospital under a heavy security operation, after his blood oxygen levels fell. One account describes respiratory problems instead and says military personnel guarded the facility. Before his death he had long suffered from deafness, partial blindness, spinal problems and chronic degenerative illnesses that required constant care. EL PAÍS described him as blind in one eye, deaf and confined to a wheelchair.

Convictions and the bid for house arrest

He had been in prison since 1989, serving two sentences that together total 77 years in two reports, while EL PAÍS gives 76 years. The convictions cover offences against health, arms stockpiling and bribery, as well as the kidnapping and homicide of DEA agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena in the 1980s. In 2022 a judge allowed him to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest because of his illnesses and age. The Attorney General's Office (FGR) challenged that ruling, and he remained in prison. In September 2022 former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Gallardo was an ill person.

A career that shaped the cartels

Félix Gallardo came from Sinaloa and co-founded the Guadalajara Cartel with Rafael Caro Quintero, known as "El Narco de narcos", and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, alias "Don Neto". The group was one of the most important organisations moving drugs to the United States and Central America in the 1970s and 1980s. One report says the Guadalajara Cartel later gave rise to the Sinaloa Cartel. He also built alliances with Colombian traffickers, and capos such as Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Joaquín Guzmán and the Arellano Félix brothers reportedly worked for him. After his arrest they divided the country among themselves and fought for control of the trade.

The Netflix series Narcos: Mexico drew on his life, and actor Diego Luna played him. In one of the few interviews he gave, Félix Gallardo denied any role in the cartels. He said he had worked in farming and cattle ranching since childhood, and that he owned pharmacies and two old hotels.

“There were never any cartels in Guadalajara.”

Open questions

The sources agree on the death date, the hospital transfer and the cause given by authorities, but they differ on the total length of his sentences and on the hospital's location. No burial details have been published so far. Authorities have not said whether further information on the death will follow.