A legendary Mexican drug cartel founder known for his own extreme personal tragedies is scheduled to soon be released from a U.S. prison.

Jesus Hector Palma Salazar, nicknamed "El Guero Palma" or Blondie for his looks, is to be freed by June, according to the U.S Bureau of Prisons, as he has completed his sentence.

It remains to be seen what will come next for the former Sinaloa Cartel boss, as Mexico's drug landscape has changed mightily since he was arrested 20 years ago.

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Palma Salazar, 55, is expected to return to the crime group he launched a generation ago with the trafficker known as "El Chapo," who was recently arrested in Mexico months after being interviewed by American actor and sometimes magazine writer Sean Penn.

Palma Salazar has seen horrific tragedy.

A rival gangster, Rafael Clavel Moreno, once seduced his wife; got her to withdraw $7 million from a bank then decapitated her and sent Palma Salazar her head.

He also shoved Palma Salazar's children to their deaths from a bridge in Venezuela.

"It devastated him," recalled Mike Vigil, a retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration and author of the book "Deal."

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"After his kids were killed, he lost all of his morality," Vigil said of Palma-Salazar.

"He took off the gloves," Vigil said, contending that Palma Salazar shifted from the surgical use of violence to wholesale killing.

Clavel Moreno was later stabbed to death.

Palma Salazar had a front-row seat to the start of modern Mexican drug cartels.

After the chief leader of the once mighty Guadalajara Cartel was captured in 1989, Mexico saw the rise of crime bosses across the country from what were then smaller, less feared groups.

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Palma Salazar and Joaquin Guzman Loera, "El Chapo" seized the opportunity to launch the Sinaloa Cartel, which remains one of Mexico's longest running and strongest crime alliances.

The death of Palma Salazar's family revealed a dramatic shift in Mexico's drug violence.

"Before it was kind of like the Italian Mafia, you don't screw with the family, " Vigil said.

Vigil predicted Palma Salazar will soon be back in business.

"I don't know how much money he has now, but the fact of the matter is that this is the only business he knows," Vigil said.

"One thing about 'El Guero Palma' is he loves the power," he is addicted to power," he said. "He has been without power for a long time and will want to regain it."