Gilberto Lerma Plata (born 1962/1963) is a Mexican former police chief and convicted drug lord. He began his career in 1993 as a police officer in the Tamaulipas State Police when his cousin Manuel Cavazos Lerma became Governor of Tamaulipas. Lerma Plata was eventually promoted to police commander in Reynosa and Miguel Alemán. In the late 1990s, while still working for the police, Lerma Plata joined the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, for whom he facilitated drug trafficking operations from Mexico to the US, coordinated cash smuggling operations, and aided in the procurement of firearms.
In 2011, Lerma Plata was indicted by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for cocaine and marijuana trafficking, but the indictment remained initially sealed in court. In 2012, he attempted to cross the US–Mexico border to visit family members in Texas and was arrested by US officials, as he was unaware of the charges he faced in the US. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to marijuana trafficking and was later sentenced to 151 months in prison. He was also ordered to forfeit US$10 billion in drug proceeds. Lerma Plata served part of his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, and was released in January 2022.
Early life and career
Gilberto Lerma Plata was born in . He started his career as a police officer in the Tamaulipas State Police in 1993 when his cousin Manuel Cavazos Lerma from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) became Governor of Tamaulipas. He was eventually promoted to commander in Reynosa before being transferred to head the force in Miguel Alemán, a post that also included the municipalities of Mier and Guerrero. In the late 1990s, while still employed by the state police, Lerma Plata joined the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas. According to security forces, Lerma Plata was on the Gulf Cartel's payroll and used his authority as a police officer to facilitate drug trafficking operations. Two police officers who eventually joined the cartel, Samuel Flores Borrego and Aurelio Cano Flores, worked under him in the state police. Both of them would eventually become high-ranking cartel members.
According to the US government, Lerma Plata became involved in drug trafficking operations since 1998 and was active continuously until 2001. During this period, he received bribery payments from La Compañía (), a name that collectively referred to the co-organization of the Gulf Cartel and its former paramilitary group Los Zetas, in exchange for protection of their operations in Miguel Alemán. Leaked reports from Mexico's Attorney General's Office (PGR) stated that the bribery payments received by Lerma Plata were used to pay politicians in Tamaulipas. In La Compañía, Lerma Plata was part of a vast network of political and police informants that included federal, state and local police chiefs. These corrupt policemen helped facilitate the cartel's drug trafficking operations, as well as expanding their business portfolio to flourish in other criminal activities like kidnappings, human smuggling, oil theft, extortion, and piracy, among others.
In or around 2006, Lerma Plata intended to smuggle or more of cocaine and or more of marijuana from Mexico to the US. This information was detailed in the 29 July 2011 United States District Court for the District of Columbia (DDC) indictment against him. In the indictment, US authorities described how they intercepted approximately fourteen phone conversations between Lerma Plata and Flores Borrego, where they discussed cocaine and marijuana shipments, procurement of firearms (specifically AK-47s and AR-15s), and cash smuggling operations for the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. These topics were often covered simultaneously in the same phone conversations, and US authorities stated that this meant that the crimes were concurrent and should not be examined separately in court. The indictment stated that Lerma Plata helped procure weapons for the cartel to facilitate their drug operations and that he was involved in money laundering. Mexican intelligence reports stated that the leader of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, had direct contact with corrupt officials from state and federal police in Tamaulipas to provide the cartel with information on law enforcement's actions. Lerma Plata was responsible for communicating with commanders from the Tamaulipas State Police and the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) stationed in Miguel Alemán, Camargo, Valle Hermoso, San Fernando, and Ciudad Victoria, to coordinate with the Gulf Cartel.