During a prison party in August 2009 that included live music for inmates at a federal prison in Culiacan, Orso Iván Gastélum Cruz "El Cholo Iván", somehow managed to escape the heavily guarded penitentiary.
One year before that, El Cholo Iván, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera's main security chief, was injured inside a penitentiary during a confrontation between rival inmates where several explosives were detonated.
During the violent and armed confrontation inside the prison, in October 2008, several well-known rival drug lords were killed, and Orso Iván and José Manuel Beltrán Olguín were injured.
According to his criminal record, “El Cholo Iván" began working with the Sinaloa Cartel's former leader, Gonzalo Araujo Payán, “el Chalo Aruajo,” and eventually went on to become “El Chapo” Guzmán's main security chief.
In 2005, federal authorities arrested Orso Iván for the first time, together with seven other men who were armed at the time with machine guns. However, just a few months later Orso Iván manage to escape for the first time.
He once against made headlines after his girlfriend, María Susana Flores Gámez, Miss Sinaloa 2012, who was traveling with him at the time, was murdered after a violent standoff with a military convoy.
According to an official report by the State Attorney General's Office, Army officials detected an armed group in the small town of Caitime in Sinaloa, which led to the hot pursuit.
The remains of the beauty queen were later found off a state highway next to an abandoned truck and AK-47. According to certain reports at the time, María Susana was used as a human shield by the cartel members during the shootout.
Orso Iván was recaptured again on January 8 of this year. This time, he was in a stolen car with the infamous cartel leader El Chapo, who attempted to intercept and free a fellow cartel member who was being transported by a marine convoy operation.