Juarez Cartel: Body of wanted drug suspect found in Albuquerque Morgue

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat TY Gus from  Albuquerque Journal and AP

“A person associated with the Padilla DTO (Drug Trafficking Organization) paid $21,000 in cash for funeral services, including a $15,000 payment of all one-hundred-dollar bills,” the search warrant affidavit said. “A drug dog alerted to the presence of controlled substances on those one-hundred-dollar bills.”

The hunt for a suspected cartel trafficker by federal narcotics agents has ended after the man’s body was discovered in a New Mexico mortuary, officials said.

The body of 43-year-old Johnny Lee Padilla was found last week at Albuquerque’s Gabaldon Mortuary, The Albuquerque Journal reported.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents are investigating whether Padilla was tortured and executed in Mexico, where they believe he lived under the protection of a cartel leader.

Authorities found Padilla’s body through an obituary on the mortuary’s website, officials said.

Authorities have linked Padilla to the Juarez Cartel and identified him as a leader in the Los Padillas gang, which they said has operated for decades out of Albuquerque’s South Valley.

A federal grand jury indicted Padilla on charges of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in 2015, but authorities said he was out of their reach in Mexico.

Agents were told in early November that Padilla died in Mexico and then found the mortuary’s online announcement of his death and pending funeral services. Agents served a search warrant on the mortuary and found the body.

“A person associated with the Padilla DTO (Drug Trafficking Organization) paid $21,000 in cash for funeral services, including a $15,000 payment of all one-hundred-dollar bills,” the search warrant affidavit said. “A drug dog alerted to the presence of controlled substances on those one-hundred-dollar bills.”

Documents indicated Padilla’s body was transported by a Mexican funeral home through Mexican customs, but there were no records of the body clearing U.S. customs.

The Mexican documents listed Padilla’s cause of death as heart attack and diabetes, but an examination found a bullet hole in the back of the head, stab wounds, scratches on the back, and “signs of torture,” U.S. records said.

A DEA spokesman would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

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Chivis Note: according to his obituary, he is the brother of Jeffrey Padilla, the  the leader of the notorious Los Padillas gang and a convicted killer. He was released from prison in 2017 with  camera crews following him.

Those cameras are part of a documentary crew that followed  Padilla for the next year, for a documentary about his life after prison.

A British documentary-maker met Padilla while working in Las Cruces on the popular A&E series, Behind Bars: Rookie Year.

Padilla was sent to prison for two murders and suspected of many more crimes. He was arrested in 1999 for killing Fernando Velasquez execution style and putting a hit on Julius Sanchez.

He was officially released after serving 17 years of a 25-year prison sentence and was welcomed back into the real world by cameras.

Padilla was originally released from prison in 2013 on probation, but after three probation violations he was sent back in 2015 to finish his sentence.