Mexican soldiers arrested a cartel suspect in Reynosa last weekend. Records show he was released soon after. Now people on both sides of the border want to know who pulled the strings.

Soldiers picked up Gregorio Sauceda del Toro in the Jacinto Lopez neighborhood of Reynosa. He is 35 years old. Mexico's public security database shows the arrest happened on a Friday night, at 6:50 p.m.

Sauceda del Toro is the son of Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa. People called his father Caramuela, Goyo, or Metro2. The father once ran a piece of the Gulf Cartel. The Mexican army arrested him in Matamoros back in 2009. He has been presumed dead ever since.

Soldiers went after the son as part of a push against Gulf Cartel extortion in Reynosa. That same database record lists him as released.

Congresswoman Eva Reyes is Sauceda del Toro's mother-in-law. She reportedly used her political influence to get the military to release him. No one has proven exactly how the release happened. But two facts are clear. Soldiers arrested him. Then he walked free.

This case sits just across the river from the Rio Grande Valley. Reynosa is directly south of McAllen and Hidalgo County. What happens there does not stay there. Cartel money, cartel guns and cartel pressure cross that border every single day.

The Gulf Cartel has leaned harder into extortion lately. Drug and migrant smuggling into Texas has slowed down. So the cartel is squeezing local business owners instead. Cartel enforcers tell shop owners which suppliers they must use. They charge a regular protection fee just so a store can stay open. Some owners say the cartel also forces them to buy a set amount of cartel supplied goods. Those goods can be as basic as flowers, charcoal and meat. A gang that used to move drugs and migrants now controls what families in Reynosa put on the dinner table.

The United States has been pushing Mexico to crack down harder. That pressure targets not just cartel gunmen, but the politicians who protect them. In 2025, the U.S. government named the Gulf Cartel a foreign terrorist organization. That label adds new pressure on Mexican officials tied to the cartel's network, family members included.

For now, the questions outnumber the answers. Why was a well connected cartel figure's son released so fast? How much did his mother-in-law really do? And how many other extortion victims in Reynosa have no congresswoman to call?

El Tejano will keep following this story as more records come out.

Everyone is presumed innocent until proved otherwise.