Víctor Manuel Vázquez Mireles (born 3 June 1967) is a Mexican suspected drug lord and former high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Vázquez Mireles joined the cartel during the 1990s and was a trusted enforcer of former kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
He started his career in the cartel as one of his bodyguards and was eventually placed in charge of operations in Tamaulipas and Veracruz.
He was reportedly responsible for supervising the purchase of drugs intended to be smuggled into the U.S.
for distribution and for arranging the assistance of corrupt law enforcement officials in the cartel's operations.
In 1999, Vázquez Mireles 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 Gulf Cartel's operations.
The agents and informant returned to the U.S.
unharmed but this incident triggered a massive manhunt against Vázquez Mireles.
He was arrested in March 2003 in Veracruz and sentenced to 7.5 years in November 2006.
His conviction was later overturned and Vázquez Mireles remained without a sentence for nearly a decade.