Adán Javier Medrano Rodríguez (born 24 December 1969), also known as El Licenciado (The Professional), is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas.
He joined the cartel during the 1990s, and was a trusted enforcer of former kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
His roles in the cartel were managing drug shipments from Guatemala to Mexico, supervising murders ordered by Cárdenas, and coordinating cash transfers from the U.S.
to Mexico.
In 1999, Medrano and his associates threatened two U.S.
agents at gunpoint in Matamoros after the agents traveled there with an informant to gather intelligence on the cartel's operations.
The agents and informant returned to the U.S.
unharmed, and the incident triggered a massive manhunt for Medrano and the rest of the cartel leadership.
A US$2 million bounty was offered for his capture, and he was charged with a number of crimes.
Medrano was arrested in 2002, and sentenced to 44 years in prison in 2006.
He was unexpectedly released from prison during the early 2010s.