A former top enforcer for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s cartel who vanished from federal parole supervision in San Diego was found murdered in Mexico alongside his sister and brother-in-law, officials said.

The bodies of Jose Rodrigo Arechiga Gamboa — known as “El Chino Antrax,” or “the Chinese Anthrax” — his sister Ada Jimena Arechiga Gamboa, and her husband, Juan Garcia, were discovered in Ada’s BMW Saturday, abandoned on a dirt road in Culiacán, Sinaloa, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

All three were found wrapped in blankets, according to the Associated Press.

When the bodies were first discovered, a leaked photograph showed a man who appeared to be Arechiga, according to the Union-Tribune.

The Sinaloa state prosecutors’ office identified him as José Rodrigo “A,” providing only his last initial, as Mexican law dictates.

But Arechiga’s family, along with Mexico’s federal prosecutorial agency and US authorities, confirmed it was in fact the notorious cartel enforcer, the paper reported.

Mexican media reports cited by the Union-Tribune indicate that three people were allegedly kidnapped Friday in a hail of bullets from a home linked to Gamboa’s sister.

Gamboa’s whereabouts were a mystery since May 6, when a U.S. probation officer in San Diego went to his new home for a scheduled check-in and discovered that he was missing, as were all his belongings, except for a cellphone.

Gamboa — whom prosecutors previously hailed as “one of the highest-ranking Sinaloa Cartel kingpins ever prosecuted in the United States” — has a record of taking extreme steps to evade capture.

When he was busted in Amsterdam in 2013, he was using a fake passport — and had “significant plastic surgery” as well as attempts to “alter his fingerprints,” prosecutors said at the time.

Following that arrest, he was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking charges in May 2015, also agreeing to forfeit $1 million in his illicit proceeds.

He was finally sentenced to seven years and three months in prison last December — but most of his time had already been served by then. He was released on March 3, according to the Union-Tribune.

El Chapo, the longtime head of the sprawling Sinaloa drug cartel, is currently serving life plus 30 years in a supermax prison in Colorado.

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Original Post https://nypost.com/2020/05/19/el-chapo-enforcer-el-chino-antrax-found-murdered-in-mexico/