Guillermo González Calderoni (26 March 1948 ''U.S., Border Crossings from Mexico to U.S., 1895–1964'' – 5 February 2003) was a commander of the Mexican

Federal Judicial Police The Federal Judicial Police ( es, Policía Judicial Federal, the PJF) was the federal police force of Mexico until it was shut down in 2002 due to its own rampant corruption and criminal activity. The jurisdiction of the Federal Judicial Police en ...

, and one of the strongmen of the

Attorney General of Mexico The Attorney General of the Republic is the head of the Attorney General's Office (''Fiscalía General de la República, FGR''; prior to 2019, ''Procuraduría General de la República, PGR'') and the Federal Public Ministry of the Mexico, Unit ...

, who went on to accuse Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former president

Carlos Salinas de Gortari Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician who served as 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he wor ...

, of being involved in drug trafficking. Calderoni was the subject of various allegations of corruption.

Biography

Calderoni was born in

Reynosa, Tamaulipas Reynosa () is a border city in the northern part of the state of Tamaulipas, in Mexico. It is also the municipal seat of Reynosa Municipality. The city is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande in the international Reynosa–McAllen Met ...

, Mexico in a well-off family. His father held an important post at

Pemex Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expr ...

, the state-owned petroleum company. His mother was

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...

. Besides his native Spanish, he was fluent in English and French. In contrast to

Spanish naming customs Spanish names are the traditional way of identifying, and the official way of registering, a person in Spain. They comprise a given name (simple or composite) and two surnames (the first surname of each parent). Traditionally, the first surname ...

, he is often referred to by his mother's last name, rather than his father's more common last name. In the early 1980s, he enrolled as a federal officer on the United States-Mexico border and rose quickly to the rank of commander. Not everything was as it seemed: Calderoni expressed contempt for Americans and

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...

agents, and admitted to smuggling cocaine across the border into

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

. He was murdered on 5 February 2003, in

McAllen, Texas McAllen is the largest city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States, and the 22nd-most populous city in Texas. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexico–United States border. The city limits extend ...

In popular culture

In the 2018

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

drama, '' Narcos: Mexico'', Calderoni is played by actor Julio Cesar Cedillo.

References

Sources

Articles * Books * * 1948 births 2003 deaths People from Reynosa Male murder victims Mexican people of American descent Mexican people of Italian descent Mexican police officers People murdered in Texas {{law-enforcement-bio-stub