Álzaga's career traces an arc from arms smuggler and slave trader to the unlikely architect of Buenos Aires's successful resistance against two British invasions — financing militias from his own fortune, organizing covert networks, and ultimately forcing the capitulation of General Whitelocke in 1807. His talent for clandestine organization, which made him effective against foreign occupiers, carried over into domestic politics, where he directed a failed royalist coup in 1809 that foreshadowed the revolutionary break of 1810. He ended his life on the gallows in 1812, condemned on what his Wikipedia entry describes as dubious evidence, in a plot against the very revolutionary government his earlier maneuvering had helped bring into existence.

His pattern was methodical and predatory — stalking underground parking structures at night in two Paris arrondissements across nearly a decade, using a knife to subdue victims before assaulting them. The 1998 conviction and 16-year sentence did not mark an end: early release in 2005 was followed almost immediately by reoffending, leading to a second, longer sentence and contributing to legislative change around recidivism in France.

His reach extended well beyond trafficking — by 2008, his organization had penetrated Mexico's political, judicial, and law enforcement institutions, including the Interpol office in Mexico, siphoning classified intelligence on anti-drug operations. That capacity for institutional infiltration, combined with command over organized assassination networks dating to the mid-1990s, distinguished him within a crowded field of cartel leadership. The Beltrán-Leyva Cartel he co-founded with his brothers represented a significant fracture in the Sinaloa Cartel's structure, reshaping the geography of drug violence in Mexico.

His career traced a consistent arc of frontier violence and Confederate military command — from leading Texas Rangers against Comanche encampments to commanding forces in 135 Civil War engagements. The 1860 Battle of Pease River, which he led, resulted in the forcible recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker, who had lived among the Comanche for over two decades and did not wish to return. He later governed Texas and presided over what became Texas A&M University, a trajectory that illustrates how figures responsible for significant harm often moved fluidly into positions of institutional authority.