 Until the end of the 1980s, the Sinaloa coalition headed by Félix Gallardo (comprising what is today the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juarez, and Pacifico Sur cartels) had nearly monopolized the illegal drug trade in Mexico.An undercover agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Kiki Camarena, managed to infiltrate deep into the drug trafficking organization and get close to Félix Gallardo.In 1984, acting on information from Camarena, 450 Mexican soldiers, backed by helicopters, destroyed a 1,000 hectare (≈2,500 acre) marijuana plantation known as "Rancho Búfalo" in Chihuahua, Mexico, known to be protected by Mexican DFS intelligence agents, as part of "Operation Godfather".