Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Carrillo's father died in April 1986. Carillo's brother, Cipriano Carrillo Fuentes, died in 1989 under mysterious circumstances.

The pressure to capture Carrillo intensified among U.S. and Mexican authorities after people in Morelos state began silent marches against governor Jorge Carrillo Olea and his presumed complacency with drug-related violence. Carrillo Fuentes owned a house three blocks from the governor's official residence and regularly held narco-fiestas in the municipality of Tetecala. Governor Carrillo Olea was forced to resign and was arrested; this type of pressure may have convinced Carrillo Fuentes to undergo facial plastic surgery and abdominal surgery liposuction to change his appearance on July 4, 1997, at Santa Mónica Hospital in Mexico City. However, during the operation, he died of complications apparently caused either by a certain medication or a malfunctioning respirator (there is very little paperwork regarding his death).

Two of Carrillo Fuentes's bodyguards were in the operating room during the procedure. On November 7, 1997, the two physicians who performed Carrillo's surgery were found dead, encased in concrete inside steel drums, with their bodies showing signs of torture.

Carrillo was given a large and lavish, expensive funeral in Guamuchilito, Sinaloa. In 2006, Governor Eduardo Bours asked the federal government to tear down Carrillo's mansion in Hermosillo, Sonora.

In Ciudad Juárez, the PGR seized warehouses that they believed the cartel used to store weapons and cocaine. They also seized over 60 properties all over Mexico belonging to Carrillo and began an investigation into his dealings with police and government officials. Officials also froze bank accounts amounting to $10 billion belonging to Carrillo. In April 2009, Mexican authorities arrested Carillo's son, Vicente Carrillo Leyva.