Juan Rucío G.

### Crimes

1 Count - Driving While Intoxication 1 Count - Rackeetering 1 Count - Forming an Organized Crime Group

### Prison History

Mexico City Correctional CenterSan Quentin State Prison

## Juan Rucío de Guzmán

### Overview

**Juan Rucío de Guzmán**, is a Mexican former drug lord and founding member of the Gray Organization and it's early variations, the Rucío-Menéndez Federation and the Rucío Organization. Juan is also the former leader of the El Suazel Cartel. Juan began working for the El Suazel Cartel in the early 1950s, later becoming an enforcer in 1957, and an underboss and eventual drug lord in 1967. Juan's aggressive leadership and tendency for mass murdering was a pinncale of his criminal career, eventually leading him to kill every member of the founding family of the El Suazel Cartel, the Ladrón family. By 2010, Juan retired from his life of crime at the age of 70, currently residing in his $15 million mansion in San Diego, California, United States.

## Biography

### Early Life

Juan Rucío de Guzmán was born in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 26th, 1940, to Javier Rucío and Mariana de Guzmán. Juan's father was an up-and-coming gang leader in Mexico City, however, throughout most of Juan's early life, Javier dealt with the retaliation of the Mexico City Cartel. In 1947, Javier's wife, Mariana, was killed by the cartel's enforcers, and later actions forced Javier and Juan into hiding in the city El Suazel, a crime-overrun Western suburb. Juan resided in a small house in the desert outskirts of the town, living only with his father who had been pushed to alcoholism, causing his physical abuse towards Juan. In 1949, Juan's father died of untreated alcohol poisioning. Subsequently, Juan traveled to the city center of El Suazel, where he lived on the streets as a child thief.

### Start in the El Suazel Cartel

At 13 years old, Juan was recruited into a street directorate of the El Suazel Cartel, which was based out of a club in Mexico City called "The Joint". From this point on, Juan began selling opiods from corners and later hanguns. At 17 years old, Juan began working as an enforcer after establishing a relationship and trust with the gang leader and club owner, Miguel Chávez. By 1959, Juan had murdered four targets: Tucker Christopher, Gabriel Castañeda, Diego García, and Alonso Vásquez, three of which were gang members, and the first being an American tourist. In 1959, Juan was put on trial for the murder of Tucker Christopher, in which he did in the method of acting as a taxi cab and purposefully driving into a roadblock, ejecting Christopher out and subsequently killing him.

### Beginning of Power

During his legal trial, Juan claimed the collision was caused by his prior alchohol consumption, as an alternative to a 1st-degree murder charge. In 1960, Juan was convicted of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to 4 years in the Mexico City Correctional Center. While imprisoned, Jaun participated in the El Suazel Cartel's drug trafficking system within the prison. After his release in 1964, Juan continued his work as an enforcer for the El Suazel Cartel, however, worked directly for the organization as opposed to a street directorate. Juan’s fierce mentality caused his reputation in Mexico, quickly becoming a much-hated man by many of the Cartel’s enemies due to his proneness to kill. By 1967, Juan had worked through the ranks of the Cartel, earning the trust of the Cartel’s primary leaders Alejandro and Miguel Ladrón.

Immediately after gaining power, Juan pressed for the Cartel’s action to assert more territory throughout Mexico, which sparked anger in the other leaders who were afraid of starting a gang war. In 1967, Juan ordered the targeted killing of Marisol Huerta, the Mayor of El Suazel, which came to a success, however, also killed her mother and another civilian in the drive-by shootout, which caused debate over age-old rules which had been set on not killing who you don’t have to. Despite pushback from both members of the Ladrón family as well as Mexican law enforcement, Juan continued to make risky decisions.

### War with the Juárez Cartel

The same year in late 1967, Juan ordered the interception of a drug-smuggling truck in Chihuahua. The enforcers sent on the mission killed the driver and additional guards and set the vehicle ablaze. This action caused a gang war with the Juárez Cartel. The conflict lasted 2 years from 1967 to 1969. During the conflict, Juan orders expressed a lack of care for humanity and gang laws, consisting of public shootings, bombings, and stabbings, which the Juárez Cartel was slow to reciprocate, giving the El Suazel Cartel the advantage. The immense amount of civilian death and property damage caused the DEA’s quick involvement. However, Juan planned for this and appointed his own members within the organization. These DEA members intentionally ordered stronger concentration on the Juárez Cartel than the  El Suazel Cartel. In 1969, the war came to an official end, as the Juárez Cartel was considered completely inactive, however, most of the cartel leaders were killed rather than arrested, causing the DEA’s involvement to be overseen as a failure.

### Conquering South America

In 1969, after Juan’s actions proved to be worthwhile, he earned praise from the Ladrón family, however, Juan fatally poisoned Alejandro Ladrón the same year, to gain more power. The year before in 1968, Miguel Ladrón had died of complications of lung cancer. The El Suazel Cartel went on to gain more territory, and by 1974 they operated in nearly all of Mexico, despite several other gang wars with the Jiménez Cartel and the Mexico City Cartel, all of which did not reach the level of notoriety as the preceding conflict. From 1974 to 1977, the El Suazel Cartel forced their power upon other nations, eventually controlling the majority of the drug trade by 1977 in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, the Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. The same year, Juan ordered the cartel's movement towards Columbia, however, received unprecedented pushback from the local crime groups.

#### Early Forming of the Gray Organization

In 1978, in order to combat the Columbian cartels, the El Suazel Cartel partnered with the largest cartel in Venezuela, the Caracas Cartel, led by Victor Menéndez. This alliance became known as the Rucío-Menéndez Federation. By 1981, the Federation completely took control of Columbia.