Melissa Margarita Calderon Ojeda knows the exact answer to the question of why men cannot be trusted: at the end of September 2015, the 30-year-old head of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico was handed over to the authorities by none other than a loving boyfriend. The guy had a reason: before his eyes, a 30-year-old girlfriend, known in the criminal world as La China, turned from an ordinary gangster into a maniac.
Up the career ladder
La China entered the world of Mexican organized crime in 2005. The girl began working for the Damaso drug cartel, closely associated with the famous Sinaloa group and its chief El Chapo. Due to her strong character and an innate tendency to cruelty, she quickly climbed the hierarchical ladder. In 2008, Melissa already commanded a militant squad responsible for expanding Damaso-controlled territories. La China and her subordinates were in control of La Paz, the main city in Baja California Sur and the popular tourist destination of Cabo San Lucas.
In the seven years under La China's control, the homicide rate in Baja California Sur has tripled.
Her team developed their own criminal style: the members of the cartel under her leadership kidnapped unwanted people from their homes, dealt with them and threw dismembered bodies to the doorsteps of their victims' houses for the edification of the public.
Work with personnel
For a job well done, La China awarded militants with bags of cocaine.
Her hobby - collecting firearms - instilled respect in her male colleagues. In her free time, the Mexican woman liked to pose for a photo with her favorite exhibits.
Melissa started an "office romance" with the action movie Pedro Gomez, nicknamed El Chino.
Own business
In June 2015, Abel Quintero, who had been in prison for seven years, returned to the ranks of Damaso. The woman was asked to vacate her position. Enraged, Calderon Ojeda announced that she was leaving, but would create her own faction.
La China declared war on her former colleagues from Damaso, refusing to surrender the territories controlled by her militants. With her right hand, she made Pedro "El Chino" Gomez. They were also joined by Damaso's chief hitman Sergio Beltran (nicknamed El Scar), drug-trafficking manager Rogelio Franco (El Tyson) and “sales chief” Pedro Cisneros (El Peter).
More than three hundred street drug dealers and ordinary militants went over to La China (they rode red motorcycles so that everyone knew: La China's man was coming).
Calderon Ojeda and her friend had to constantly change their place of residence, as their capture became the number one task for the La Paz police. During the two months of La China's reign, there were more murders in the city than in the entire previous year. The gang buried their victims in a secret mass grave.
Human factor
The members of the group began to intimidate the ferocity of La China. To some in her team, her passion for chopping off limbs before death and executing random, innocent townspeople began to seem wild.
El Tyson was the first to panic when Melissa dealt with his parents' friends: the couple had only to sell La China a truck, but instead of money they received a pool. Upon learning of the murder of his acquaintances, the drug dealer announced that he would go to the police. However, the man did not reach the guardians of order - he was killed with particular cruelty: the police found his body with severed hands a month after the execution.
La China was also eager to deal with her former colleagues in Damaso. She chose one of the militant commanders and his girlfriend as her target. The man managed to escape death, but his girlfriend was killed.
Frightened by La China's brutality, her boyfriend left the cartel. He decided to go to the police and cooperate with the investigation.
In exchange for information about the burial place of the victims of the cartel and, most importantly, the location of La China, Pedro Gomez was promised concessions in court. Thanks to the help of El Chino, his violent mistress was detained without firing a shot as she tried to leave the state under her control. La China was taken at the Cabo San Lucas airport.
The most violent head of a drug cartel in Mexico has been imprisoned in La Paz. These days, she answers the questions of the investigation in Mexico City, and in 2016 she will appear before the court, where she will be charged with more than 150 murders.
In Mexico, a woman was arrested who ran a drug cartel and kept the inhabitants of an entire city at bay. Melissa "La China" Calderon was detained thanks to information given to the police by her former lover. An imperious and bloodthirsty woman is suspected of organizing and committing a huge number of murders and abductions, in addition, she is accused of drug trafficking.
Melissa "La China" Calderon, whom her boyfriend and deputy Pedro "El Chino" Gomez calls "a maniac", is accused of the murders of 180 people. The largest female drug trafficker was captured Saturday after El Chino passed information, including the secret graves of his girlfriend's victims, to authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Melissa Margarita Calderón Ojeda, 30, known as "La China" (Chinese), became involved in organized crime in 2005, joining the Damaso drug cartel. The criminal organization has ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, operating in the Mexican state of Baja California, one of the country's main drug smuggling regions, and led by recently escaped prisoner Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. 
Known for her ruthlessness and brutality, she was named head of the cartel's armed wing in 2008. Its power extended to the city of La Paz and the popular tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. 
In the seven years she ran an armed wing of the cartel, the homicide rate in Baja California Sur has tripled. La China became infamous for kidnapping its victims from their homes and then throwing their dismembered bodies on doorsteps as a warning to local communities. 
When she was offered to leave her position in the Damaso cartel, she fled and declared war on her former associates. To motivate the gang members, La China ordered sacks of cocaine to be handed out to them. Rogelio "El Tyson" Franco (left) took over the logistics, Sergio "El Scar" Beltran (center) became the main killer, and Pedro "El Peter" Cisneros (right) oversaw the sale of drugs and disposal of bodies. In addition, La China had over three hundred street drug dealers and fighters who rode red motorcycles to identify themselves. 
La China placed great emphasis on safety and constantly changed vehicles and locations. In early August, fearing that her vehicles had become known and tracked by authorities, La China ordered logistics to El Tyson to buy a pickup truck. El Tyson sent two friends of his parents to La China who wanted to sell the car, but she killed them without paying anything. El Peter buried their bodies in a secluded area north of the city. 
When El Tyson arrived on the scene and saw that his innocent friends were brutally murdered, he became angry and threatened to contact the police. In a fit of rage over the alleged treason, La China sliced off El Tyson's forearms before killing him. 
Shortly thereafter, the main assassin, El Scar, killed his beloved prostitute after she abandoned any further relationship with him due to his violent sexual tastes.
The final straw was the failed attempt to kidnap El Tocho, a member of the Damaso drug cartel who fought for the territory of La China in La Paz. The bandits managed to detain his girlfriend Lourdes, whom La China brutally tortured, trying to find out information, and then killed. 
After that, El Chino, the lover of the head of the drug cartel, shocked by her cruelty, left the gang and was soon captured by the police. During interrogation, he talked about how La China's behavior got out of control. His words were soon confirmed by El Peter, who was detained a week later. El Peter showed the police the location of the secret graves. 
La China was arrested without firing a shot on Saturday, September 19, at Los Cabos International Airport, while trying to flee the country. She was taken to a prison in La Paz, a city she controlled just three months ago. La China is currently being interrogated in Mexico City and will stand trial for more than 150 murders next year. 
Although the law enforcement agencies of all countries of the world are constantly fighting criminals, there are individuals who create entire empires ready to challenge the state. Especially in this field, drug traffickers have succeeded, amassing billions of dollars, who can afford to maintain a whole army of well-equipped mercenaries. Meet the ten most famous drug lords, whose finest hour came in the 80s - 90s of the last century, with whom in the twenty-first century the special services learned how to effectively deal with quickly cutting off large drug supply channels.
10. Ricky Ross
American Ricky Ross, better known in the criminal circles as Freeway, was the king of "crack" in the 80s. In a day, through dealers, he sold more than 3 million dollars of drugs, distributing about 400 kilograms of cocaine in a week. Now he is in an American prison, serving a life sentence, without parole. Ricky Ross was handed over by a partner, becoming intermediaries in the sale of 100 kilograms of cocaine to federal agents.
9.Paul Lear Alexander
Paul Lear Alexander, nicknamed "The Cocaine Baron", is a very controversial person who has aged around him an aura of mystery and omnipotence. For some time he was the number one supplier of cocaine in Brazil, and at the same time he became so insolent that he handed out business cards openly. However, he was forced to flee to the United States, where he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, draining many competitors and seriously increasing the scale of his activities. As a result, Paul Lear Alexander went to jail due to a double game with the federal authorities.
8. Santiago Luis Polanco Rodriguez
Dominican Santiago Luis Polanco Rodriguez, nicknamed Yayo, turned drug sales into an art by using the marketing ploy of large chain stores. He managed to create his own brand, introduced a system of discounts for regular customers, and the goods were distributed in beautiful parchment envelopes. Rodriguez was able to go to prison for a short time, for a relatively minor offense not connected with the main activity. He now lives in Dominica with his family, out of the reach of the US judicial system.
7. Felix Mitchell
Felix Mitchell better known in criminal circles as "Cat" and "Gangster 69" did not just create a drug empire, but became a darling of the black quarters of Auckland, thanks to numerous charity events. He paid scholarships and studies for athletes, generously funded schools, distributed free tickets to children in amusement parks and zoos. After his arrest, during the redistribution of spheres of influence, the streets of the city for several weeks turned into a real theater of military operations. Mitchell was killed in prison, and his funeral turned into a real show with a crowd of thousands, a bunch of flowers and expensive cars. The most paradoxical, a few years after his death, he was acquitted due to mistakes during the investigation, which made Felix Mitchell a real legend of the underworld.
6. Carlos Leder
Carlos Leder was able to make a dizzying career from an unknown car thief to one of the founders of the Medellin cartel. At one time, he was able to create a very effective system for the delivery of cocaine from Colombia to the United States through Southeast Asia, and made cocaine available even to the middle class. Carlos turned the island of Normans Cay, the Bahamas archipelago, into a transshipment base, through which up to 300 kilograms of drugs passed daily. As a result, he was pressed by the Colombian police and extradited to the United States, where Carlos Ledera received a life sentence.
5. Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha
Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, nicknamed "El Mexicano", one of the founders of the Medellin cartel, controlled the transportation of cocaine from Colombia to the United States through Panama and Mexico, plus established channels for the uninterrupted supply of drugs in Europe and Asia. Its scale of activity was so great that it even ranked among the hundred richest people in the world according to Forbes magazine. Gacha was notable for its particular cruelty, with the help of which the Minister of Justice of Colombia and the leaders of several local parties were killed. Moreover, he managed to create a professional army, unleashing a real war with the government. As a result, he was killed at the ranch during the storming of the Colombian police.
4. Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco, also known as the “Cocaine Queen of Miami”, actively collaborated with the Medellin cartel, was considered one of the best distributors of cocaine. It was she who was the first to be able to establish an uninterrupted supply of drugs to the United States from Colombia. Griselda Blanco was able to make a fortune of half a billion dollars, starting her journey with a girl of easy virtue, changing three husbands along the way. It was a very unbalanced one, especially distinguished by special cruelty, on the hands of Griselda Blanca the blood of dozens, if not hundreds of people killed with special sadism. She served 20 years in a US prison for drug trafficking, after which she was deported to Colombia, where she was killed by two mercenaries on motorcycles, firing several shots at point-blank range.
3. Hong Sa
Hong Sa, nicknamed "The Opium King" and "Prince of Death", is not just another ordinary drug lord, but one of the leaders of the Burmese opposition, who managed to create his own state in a state on the border of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. For some time he controlled 75% of the heroin market in the world, fought protracted partisan battles with the regular army, and the American authorities offered three million dollars for his extradition. As a result, he surrendered to the Burmese authorities in 1996, having spent the rest of his days at home in comfortable conditions under house arrest.
2. Amando Carillo Fuentes
Amando Carillo Fuentes, also known as “Lord of the Heavens,” began his career as a drug dealer as a henchman for a Colombian cartel, paid for with cocaine, which he sold through his own distribution network. In the late 1980s, when the Colombian cartels began to have big problems with the law, he got down to business seriously, organizing the Juarez Cartel, which controlled the pillbox of half of the illegal drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States. Fuentes was the first to actively use aircraft for the transport of drugs, owning an entire flotilla of 700 flying machines that continuously flew from South to North America and back. In the best years, under his strict guidance, drug trafficking reached up to $ 30 million a day. Died Amando Carillo Fuentes during an unsuccessful plastic surgery.
1. Pablo Escobar
Drug lord number one is Pablo Escobar, the founder of the Medellin drug cartel, who ruled it with an iron fist for many years. In his best years, he controlled 80% of the global cocaine market; by the end of the 90s, he had amassed a fortune of $ 9 billion, being included in the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. Escobar began his criminal career with ordinary thefts, but quickly went up the hill, by 1977 becoming the number one authority in the underworld. He did not have a special fantasy of doing business, but he was distinguished by cruelty, the ability to put things in order and achieve goals at any cost. Pablo Escobar waged a real war against officials in Colombia who tried to resist him, as a result of which more than 30 judges, 400 police officers, about 3,000 civilians were killed and an airplane with 100 passengers on board was blown up. As a result, in addition to the authorities, rival drug cartels and people who suffered from Escobar, who united in the Los Pepes organization, declared war on him. For several years, a whole bunch of people associated with the world's No. 1 drug lord have been killed. Pablo Escobar died at the hands of a Los Pepes sniper, during the assault on the house in which he was hiding by the police.
You all know this name - Pablo Escobar. The famous Colombian drug lord was the main one in one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. In the 1980s, Escobar's drug cartel became an entire empire, it terrified at one mention, not only competitors in the market were afraid of criminals, but entire countries as well. The "company" worked throughout the entire Earth. Escobar earned his billions of dollars on drug dealing, kidnapping and contract killings. The drug dealer's army consisted of the most dangerous murderers and bandits.
"King of Coke" - so Escobar became famous, the scale of his activities is amazing, 80 percent of the world's cocaine belonged to Pablo. Such assessments of the cartel of the great criminal were given by the US intelligence services. When the Medellin cocaine cartel covered up, his property was counted, the amount was $ 30 billion. Even today, it becomes known about the discovery in Escobar's houses of jewelry and money hidden by a criminal.
Pablo raised his first money on the sale of tombstones. He stole them from cemeteries and resold them, but soon such work seemed to Escobar unworthy of his efforts. It was in the process of this work that the future drug lord acquired his first acquaintances and became the owner of commercial abilities. After this experience, the criminal took a firm place in the cigarette market.
So, in the early 80s, Pablo had already become one of the most powerful criminals in Colombia, control over the power in the country was concentrated in his hands, crushing all the courts and Congress under him. In the country, no claims were ever made against Escobar, although everyone knew perfectly well where Escobar got such huge money from.
Even those who did not want to cover the drug cartel were left without an alternative, because Pablo's methods of removing obstacles were cruel and merciless. "Silver or lead" ("Plata about Plomo") - which meant, either accept or die. So in the country there were no daredevils left who could go against the lord. Few people know, but in 1982 the drug lord was elected to the Colombian Congress. The dream has come true - all power, now even officially, is in the hands of a bandit.
Pablo's mistake was his openly supporting a terrorist organization. Then the hunt began for him. Los Extraditables, under the auspices of Escobar, killed more than 500 police officers, and in total several thousand people became victims of crimes. The end of the empire became visible when the deeds of Escobar invaded the United States. The Reagan Administration, together with Colombia, launched an anti-terrorist operation.
Escorbar began to take revenge, together with his organization, he carried out 7 terrorist attacks, 37 people died, and 400 were injured. Pablo also ordered to blow up the plane, which the terrorists did, killing more than a hundred people. The drug lord had a main goal - Cesar Trujillo, who was about to take over the presidency of the country. However, the official did not fly into that ill-fated plane as planned. Another terrorist attack later claimed 62 lives.
The first operation to liquidate the drug cartel bore good results - more than a thousand mansions and farms, 710 cars, 367 aircraft, 73 boats and more than 1200 weapons were confiscated. The police also found a huge shipment of cocaine weighing 4.7 tons, it was just being prepared for sale.
Escobar had one strong rival - the Cali cartel, it was the war with this subject of the drug market that became decisive in Pablo's activities. Later, a whole organization was formed that dreamed of destroying Pablo - Los Pepes. This abbreviation, translated into Russian, means “people who suffered from Pablo Escobar”. These were the relatives of those 10 thousand people who died at the hands of Pablo. So, on December 2, 1993, the "Cocaine King" was destroyed. He was blocked in one of the houses of the Los Olibos quarter; security forces, police and American agents from the NSA took part in the operation. When Escorbar went to the roof, he was shot by a sniper.
Pablo had a wife, Maria-Victoria, and children, whom he loved and protected from everything.
These drug lords are no longer dangerous. Someone in prison, someone in the next world. But their work, alas, lives on and flourishes.
1. Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela
Source: cocaine.org
Nickname "Chess Player". One of the most famous drug lords in the world. In the early 1990s, he controlled up to 80% of the world's cocaine smuggling. At one time, the Orejuela brothers - Gilberto and Miguel - ran the Colombian drug cartel Cali, once the most powerful criminal syndicate in the world. He competed with the infamous Medellin drug cartel. Arrested in 1995. At the time of their arrest, the brothers' annual income was $ 8 billion. Extradited to the United States in 2004.
2. Joaquin Guzman Loera
Source: wordpress.com
Nickname "Shorty". This Mexican billionaire drug lord is ranked 24th most influential people in the world. He is the author of the widely used technology of transporting cocaine across the Mexican-American border through underground tunnels. In 1993 he was arrested and convicted. However, in 2001, through bribery, he managed to escape from prison. At the moment, after the murder of Osama bin Laden by American special forces, he is considered the most wanted criminal by American justice.
3. Oziel Cardenas
Nickname "Assassin Friend". One of the most brutal Mexican drug lords. In February 2010 he was sentenced in the United States to 25 years in prison. In court, he confessed to drug dealing, money laundering, attempted murder and attacks on US federal agents. Prior to his arrest in 2003, he led the "smuggling empire" in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States every year. He was known for his special cruelty towards enemies and competitors.
4. Amado Carrillo Fuentes
Source: mysanantonio.com
Nickname "Lord of Heaven". Received it for the fact that he often smuggled drugs to the United States by air on planes. One of the founders of the Juarez drug cartel. Some experts consider him to be the largest drug dealer in the history of mankind. According to some reports, shortly before his death in 1997, he came to Moscow to meet with the leaders of the Russian drug mafia. Died of a deadly mix of painkillers while trying to change his appearance.
5. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria
