March 8, 1970 - Nazario Moreno Rodríguez
What distinguished Moreno González from many of his contemporaries was the deliberate fusion of religious identity with cartel structure — his organization issued quasi-scriptural texts to members and cultivated a messianic image among Michoacán's poor that served both as social glue and a recruitment tool. That ideological scaffolding helped La Familia Michoacana, and later the Knights Templar Cartel, maintain cohesion and local legitimacy in ways that pure enforcement rarely achieves. The result was an organization that operated simultaneously as a trafficking enterprise, a disciplinary cult, and a shadow welfare system.
From Wikipedia
Nazario Moreno González (8 March 1970 – 9 March 2014), commonly referred to by his aliases El Chayo ('Nazario' or 'The Rosary') and El Más Loco ('The Craziest One'), was a Mexican drug lord who headed La Familia Michoacana before heading the Knights Templar Cartel, a drug cartel headquartered in the state of Michoacán. He was one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords.
Very few details are known of Moreno González's early life, but the authorities believe that religion played a major role in his upbringing. Although born in Michoacán, Moreno González moved to the United States as a teenager, but fled back into Mexico about a decade later to avoid prosecution on drug trafficking charges. In 2004, the drug boss Carlos Rosales Mendoza was captured, and Moreno González, alongside José de Jesús Méndez Vargas, took control of La Familia Michoacana. Unlike other traditional drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, his organization also operated like a religious cult, where its own members were given "bibles" with sayings and conduct guidelines. Moreno González reportedly carried out several philanthropic deeds to help the marginalized in Michoacán. Such deeds helped him craft an image of protector, saint, and Christ-like messianic figure among the poor, and gave La Familia Michoacana a level of influence among some natives.
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