Pablo Acosta

Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Marco DeHaro

Mimi Webb Miller

David Regela

Comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni

Mat Perez

Ojinaga

Santa Elena

Cast of Characters

Comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni

A Mexican federal police commander with orders to take out Pablo Acosta, Calderoni trapped and killed the Ojinaga drug lord in the remote Rio Grande village of Santa Elena. His attempts to capture Acosta over a period of five months were unsuccessful until he discovered the river hideout and was able to launch a raid by flying an assault team through Texas with an FBI escort. A high-ranking police official, Calderoni later defected to the United States and provided the FBI with intelligence about drug corruption within the Mexican government. He alleged that the brother of then president Carlos Salinas de Gortari was giving official protection to the Gulf Coast drug cartel based in Matamoros, Mexico, and that the presidential sibling had planned to purchase an entire port on the Gulf of Mexico in collusion with a powerful trafficker in order to facilitate drug smuggling.

Mexican Federal Police Comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni (center) stands with two American agents in front of one of the Mexican police helicopters used in the cross-border raid that led to the death of Pablo Acosta. (Photo courtesy of Mat Perez) (Click photo to enlarge.) An hour after Mexican federal police helicopters flew into Santa Elena and trapped him in his adobe with two gunmen, Pablo Acosta was dead. His body was dragged out of the blazing home, which the Mexican police had torched. His last words were, "You'll never take me alive!" (Photo courtesy of the DEA). (Click photo to enlarge.) These weapons were a small part of the arsenal of machine guns and pistols Pablo Acosta stockpiled. An international strike force confiscated them after killing Acosta during a furious gun battle in the Rio Grande village of Santa Elena. (Photo courtesy of the DEA)