When the Gulf Cartel was moving tons of cocaine to the United States and moving millions of dollars in cash along the border in the 1970s, Juan García Ábrego decided that he needed more protection. Court documents indicated that García Ábrego was bribing several law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and politicians on both sides on the border to keep himself impune and untouched. His former friends and associates mentioned that the drug lord was paying one of Carlos Salinas de Gortari's deputy attorneys general more than $1.5 million a month for his protection. He is allegedly reported to have been protected by a large private army of gunmen. A retired FBI agent and expert in drug trafficking explained that the Gulf Cartel "relied on bribery" to build its drug empire and consolidate its prominence.