Carlos Landín Martínez (born – 9 December 2021),ínMartí also known as El Puma, was a Mexican former police chief and convicted drug lord. He was a high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and worked as the second-in-command of the cartel in Reynosa from 2005 to 2007. Landín Martínez was a trusted enforcer of the kingpin Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa. Among his responsibilities included managing international drug trafficking shipments from Tamaulipas to Texas, collecting taxes from independent traffickers who operated in his turf, and managing money laundering operations. Landín Martínez was also a commander in the Tamaulipas State Police, where he headed the homicide task-force. According to a witness who testified against him in court, Landín Martínez worked for the Gulf Cartel while still employed by the state police.
In July 2007, Landín Martínez was arrested after being spotted by an off-duty U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent inside a supermarket in McAllen, Texas. He was charged with multiple counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy, and money laundering. In January 2008, he was found guilty of all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, his sentence was later reduced. The case against Landín Martínez highlighted unprecedented levels of cooperation between local and federal authorities in the U.S. and Mexico. Since the case was built from a bottom-up approach, with low-level criminals providing authorities with information that led to their leadership, investigators stated that the case could potentially serve as a model for future organized crime cases.
Early life and career
Carlos Landín Martínez was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in . He was a member of the Tamaulipas State Police, where he worked as the commander of the homicide investigatory task-force. His efforts in the agency were lauded in law enforcement circles. In the police, he was known as "El Puma Uno" () for his aggressive stance against the most-wanted criminals in Tamaulipas; his family members nicknamed him "El Sapo" () for his wide face and neck. In March 1997, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested him and Pablo Villanueva Hernández, another police chief, for reportedly being involved with Los Nichos, a Reynosa-based drug gang. Hours later, however, Landín Martínez was released from custody due to lack of evidence and resumed his police duties.
On 28 May 1999, Landín Martínez was permanently released from the Tamaulipas State Police along with nine other police chiefs. This decision was made by the former Tamaulipas Governor Tomás Yarrington (1999–2005). Yarrington released them because they were suspected by the PGR of being involved in drug trafficking during the administration of his predecessor Manuel Cavazos Lerma (1993–1999). When he was in the state police, Landín Martínez was involved with the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas. Authorities also stated he worked closely with Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel's former paramilitary group. Landín Martínez lived a double life to avoid detection; he posed as a retiree while being involved in organized crime. In Mexico, he ran a criminal organization responsible for international drug trafficking; in the U.S., he spent time with his family, including his three children and four grandchildren.
U.S. authorities tracked Landín Martínez's drug trafficking activities back to 1998, when his criminal cells in Granjeno and Peñitas, Texas, worked with a family-led smuggling ring headed by Francisco Meza-Rojas, a former McAllen police officer. For nearly a decade, Landín Martínez's drug trafficking cells were responsible for moving narcotics from Mexico into the U.S. Most of the drugs from the Gulf Cartel were cultivated in Michoacán, smuggled through Tamaulipas, and then redistributed in South Texas and throughout the rest of the U.S. The drugs were smuggled via the Rio Grande River and dropped off in designated spots for arranged middlemen to pick up. The drugs were then given to other smugglers, who met in parking lots of businesses in the McAllen area. Smugglers linked to Landín Martínez would then take the drugs and store them in stash houses across the city. A group of smugglers would then take those drugs past the U.S. Border Patrol stations in Falfurrias and Sarita, where they would then be distributed to cities like Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Tampa, Nashville, Atlanta, Greensboro, and New York City. Once drug cells were finalized, couriers would bring the money back to Mexico from all over the U.S. through the Reynosa border crossing, where it reached Landín Martínez's network.