Editing Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (section)

== Murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena ==
An undercover agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Enrique Camarena managed to infiltrate deep into the drug trafficking organization and 
had become close to Félix Gallardo. In 1984, acting on information from 
Camarena, 450 Mexican soldiers backed by helicopters destroyed a 1,000 hectare (≈2,500 acre) marijuana plantation known as 'Rancho Búfalo' in Chihuahua, Mexico, as part of "Operation Godfather". Thousands of farmers worked the 
fields at Rancho Buffalo, and the annual production was later valued at US$8 billion. All of this took place with the knowledge of local police, politicians, and the military.<sup>[2][10]</sup>
 Camarena was also beginning to expose the connections between drug
traffickers, Mexican law enforcement, and high-ranking government 
officials within the PRI, which Gallardo considered to be a major threat to the Guadalajara cartel's operations throughout Mexico.<sup>[6]</sup>

Félix Gallardo ordered the kidnapping of Enrique Camarena. On February 7, 1985 Jalisco police officers on the cartel's payroll kidnapped Camarena as he left 
the U.S. consulate. His helicopter pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, was 
also kidnapped soon afterwards.<sup>[2][10]</sup>
 They were both brought to a ranch owned by Gallardo and brutally
tortured over the course of 30 hours. On February 9, Camarena was killed when a Phillips-head screwdriver was stabbed into his skull. His 
shrink-wrapped body was later found, along with Avelar's, in a shallow 
hole on a ranch in Michoacan state.<sup>[6]</sup>

Camarena's murder prompted one of the largest DEA homicide investigations ever undertaken, Operation Leyenda.<sup>[2][11]</sup>
 A special unit was dispatched to coordinate the investigation in
Mexico, where corrupt officials were being implicated. Investigators 
soon identified Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and his two close 
associates: Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero
<nowiki> </nowiki>as the primary suspects in the kidnapping. Under enormous pressure from
<nowiki> </nowiki>the US, Fonseca and Quintero were quickly apprehended, but Félix 
Gallardo still enjoyed political protection.<sup>[2]</sup>