Loera began work at the age of nine as a gomero - a farmhand harvesting opium - and as he grew up he shot and murdered his way to the top. In 2009, he made the Forbes annual billionaires list and, before his capture by Mexican marines in 2016, the Sinaloa cartel which he commanded was turning over more than $11 billion in annual sales to North America, supplying more than 10 per cent of all illegal narcotics used on that continent.

This made him Public Enemy Number One in the USA.