Overview

• Ezequiel Cárdenas Rivera was detained at 12:55 a.m. on August 17 in Colonia Villa Española, Matamoros, by Tamaulipas state security agents
• Officers said he was driving without license plates when they discovered a 9 mm handgun, its magazine and five cartridges inside the Jeep Wrangler
• He was transferred to the Fiscalía General de la República and recorded under case FED/TAMP/MAT/0001782/2025 in the National Detention Registry
• Cárdenas Rivera is the son of former cartel capo Antonio ‘Tony Tormenta’ Cárdenas Guillén and is viewed as the leader of the Los Escorpiones cell
• Los Escorpiones continues to contest territory in Matamoros, Río Bravo and Ciudad Victoria as security forces maintain operations against Gulf Cartel factions