Jurors broke down in tears when De Leon described a mother and father being pulled by their hair and forced to watch their 6-year-old daughter dismembered alive before they faced the same, brutal death. This savagery is nothing new. newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. He also forced captured Mexican migrants into gladiatorial fights to the death. WebThe Los Zetas used improvised weapons like knives, rocks, and burning mattresses. Information obtained from authorities points to the victims being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The violence has ebbed and flowed since that decade, including a shootout with Mexican police in 2008 which led to the arrest of Eduardo Arellano Felix (via Reuters). Officials exhuming the bodies noticed that many bore the marks of blunt trauma. The last time Reyna saw his son was Sept. 11, 2011. Rogue policemen are believed to have played a role in the deaths of 193 people, whose bodies were found in hidden graves in San Fernando in 2011, and 49 in Cadereyta in the state of Nuevo Leon in 2012. Millan-Vasquez was found guilty last July of murder, violence, drug and weapons trafficking, and employing minors in a drug crime a total of 10 counts. Not only does Los Zetas control key drug smuggling routes into the United States, but it now controls much of the illicit trade of sneaking migrant workers to the US. In April 2015, the group killed 15 police officers just weeks after killing five federal officers, which involved the use ofmachine guns and grenade launchers. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. There are a handful of drug cartels in Mexico, most of which run almost like corporations. Reporter-producer Larisa Epatko contributed to this report. If the lawmakers are puppets to drug cartels, then there is very little hope that the war against the cartels will be won. Besides drug smuggling, the cartel is involved in every facet of trade in its territory including human trafficking. Promotional materials distributed by your outlet, including all social media work, must include cites for the Observer and our reporter. Originally a security detail for the Sinaloa cartel, BLO seceded in 2008 and a fierce conflict ensued. The cartel's influence has declined like many of its fragmenting peers, but their power remains strong inCiudad Jurez and the Valle de Jurez, which are key trafficking locations. During the late '70s and 1980s, the Sinaloa Cartel worked with the Medellin cartel, establishing lucrative cocaine routes to the United States that spanned land, sea and air. WebLos Zetas is a powerful Mexican drug cartel that has made special use of fear to achieve its business goals. Founded by the Orejuela brothers, the Cali cartel earned billions a year, inheriting the Medellin cartel's 80% market share and multi-ton shipments to the United States (via Seattle Times/Insider). Jeffrey Morris is a researcher and freelance writer with a passion for history and rarities. He claimed that the drugs came from the Zetas "comandantes" or commanders, which included Millan-Vasquez. During his peak in the mid-1980s, Escobar established a debt collection service called "Oficina de Envigado," which was based in the town hall of Envigado. I know that police and transit officials in San Fernando help the Zetas organization, because rather than take detainees to the Pentgano, which is to say the municipal jail, they would deliver them to the Zetas, said lvaro Alba Terrazas, one of the 17 detained police officials. Los Zetas was formed in 1997 to serve as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. Perhaps the most heinous La Linea crime occurred in Bavispe, where the group attacked a Mormon family inNovember 2019, killing nine people including several children, according to ABC. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. With Americans running the organization, winning the war against Los Zetas would be much more difficult. Miguel Angel Trevino Morales (aka Comandante 40) The 2010 San Fernando Massacre bore similarities to the June 2011 confession of Zetas member dgar Huerta Montiel. Example video title will go here for this video. The cartels have now moved beyond drug violence to murdering busloads of civilians, and the government seems incapable of stopping it. Their vicious feud affects ordinary people, too, such as Juan Manuel Delgado Crdenas, a 23-year-old student who was murdered for refusing to cook synthetic drugs (via Mexico News Daily). !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. He said that officers escorted him to remote locations to deliver guns to Millan-Vasquez on more than one occasion. Known for his brutality, one technique he allegedly favored was the guiso, or stew, in which enemies would be placed in 55-gallon drums and burned alive. The fact that Los Zetas was able to grow and nurture $2 million worth of marijuana in Texas is quite distressing. The irony of this scenario is that the training they received was supposed to prepare them for counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics operations. WebCartel Del Golfo interrogation 4 Zetas these bastards have admitted to raping women,killing women, killing kids. [10] The authorities havent succeeded in shutting down the cartels sophisticated radio communication due to two reasons: The first is that the radio equipment is easy to replace; the second is that the gang relies on free forced labor to build and maintain its radio equipment. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. You cannot underestimate the capabilities of a cartel whose founding fathers were trained by the U.S. military. First it was people with money, then it was anyone. Rather than prioritizing corruption like its competitors, Los Zetas has [6] Mexican drug cartels are currently operating in 47 countries around the world, including Colombia, Guatemala, and others. De Leon is now cooperating with authorities. His evil career was so incredibly successful that he made Forbes' billionaire list from 1987 to 1993. Melissa del Bosque joined the Texas Observer staff in 2008. Trevino Morales became head of the Los Zetas cartel after the death of long-time leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano in October 2012. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government, the children have been identified as Galilea Garcia Amaya, Mariana Garcia Amaya (both from Texas), Maria Pizana Carrizales and Estephania Guadalupe Pizana Carrizales. Lazcano died in a shootout with the Mexican Navy. The video shows four women on their knees in a field, their hands tied behind their backs. With their archenemy established, La Familia Michoacana set out to publicize themselves. With all this being said, the power and brutality of the gang seem to be waning. After the group's 1985 murder of DEA agentEnrique Camarena, the US and Mexico closed in on the cartel, causing several leaders to disperse across Mexico, leaving El Chapo and his partnerHctor Luis Palma Salazar as the Sinaloa chiefs. Breitbart Texas Cartel Chroniclesare published in both English and in their originalSpanish. De Leon said that he helped Los Zetas stash drugs, transport firearms and deliver marijuana to drug mules along the river to be smuggled to the U.S. WebMultiple witnesses have testified that Millan-Vasquez controlled the region of Piedras Negras for Los Zetas and is responsible for hundreds of killings and disappearances. The Los Zetas cartel gunmen even executed the family dog. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government, the children have been identified as Galilea Garcia Amaya, Mariana Garcia Amaya (both from Texas), Maria Pizana Carrizales and Estephania Guadalupe Pizana Carrizales. If a debtor refused, Escobar deployed his team of lethal "sicarios.". This radio communication technology has given them a edge over Mexican law enforcement agencies for years. Former governor Humberto Moreira was also singled out by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon has having protected Los Zetas in his state. The traditional cartels buy off politicians, establish traffic routes for smuggling and make money. And these lives are often innocent civilians caught up in the dreadful violence and corruption, such as the shootout in Tulum, which killed two tourists and injured three more, according toThe Guardian. Piedras Negras, in the state of Coahuila, has a reputation as a hotbed for drug smuggling and violence. He created a company, Tremor Enterprises, to purchase racehorses for American contests, winning millions in prize money through fixing races and doping horses. The Shrinking actor talks mental health, being queer, and why the Lone Star State is the perfect home for his new play Silver Foxes. As the cartel made connections across Mexico and the world, their death toll increased exponentially. A depressing fact about Los Zetas is that they are sometimes aided by Mexican police in the commission of unspeakable crimes. Inside The Brutal 1955 Murder Of 14-Year-Old Emmett Till That Galvanized The Civil Rights Movement, 101-Year-Old Woman Who Began Trapping Lobster Before The Great Depression Has No Plans To Retire, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Following the 2011 San Fernando Massacre, Federal Highway 101 was colloquially dubbed the highway of death or the devils road.. Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano (aka The Executioner) However, recently, theyve taken their drug manufacturing activities to highly advanced countries like the United States. The first one they asked, he didn't want to work, and [cartel members] said, that's fine. He turned around, and they shot him in the head. Violent drug gangs are waging a bloody war in the tourist haven of Quintana Roo - visited by millions of British and American holidaymakers each year. Millan-Vasquez faces multiple charges, including conspiracy to distribute narcotics, enticing minors to sell drugs, giving a false identification to authorities, and charges for at least nine murders in South Texas and Northern Mexico. In the 1990s, the aforementioned Cali cartel took the mantle from their Medellin rivals, becoming the most powerful cartel in the world. At times [he inflicted] the cruellest of pain, forcing relatives to watch their loved ones murdered before he turned his blades on them, said Mr Durbin. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics In early April, Mexican military officials made another grisly discovery in the once sleepy farming community of San Fernando: a series of mass graves among the mesquite brush. When Reyna didn't hear from his son for several days, he started making calls. 4 Navarro from Ciudad Victoria. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story: This article was originally published by the, Articles cannot be rewritten, edited or changed beyond alignments with house style books. The office's purpose was to collect debts from Escobar's extensive trafficking network. Put in pairs and given sledgehammers, they were forced to fight each other. This has led to savage fighting between some 400 splinter gangs, each killing and maiming for scraps of territory (via Business Insider). WebLos Zetas, originally founded by Mexican special forces deserters, some with US training, started as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, a crime group from northeastern A red Blackberry phone belonging to De Leon was examined by computer forensics experts with Homeland Security Investigations. They were given map reading courses, communications, and standard Special Forces training and instruction on how to use light and heavy weapons, machine guns, and several other automatic weapons. According to reports in the BBC and Insight Crime, the latest cartel trend is the fragmentation of the drug trafficking landscape, especially in Mexico. According to court testimony, from 2007 through 2011, Chavarria oversaw the shipment of enormous quantities of cocaine between Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, and Eagle Pass, Texas on behalf of the Los Zetas Cartel, in which he was a high-ranking member. Human smugglers often use buses to transport migrants north to the Texas-Mexico border. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. As part of the threats, the Vieja Escuela faction has ordered that the relatives of the CDN leadership leave Ciudad Victoria or face a sure death. [9] Local police rounded up migrants traveling by bus and handed them over to the gang. Victims were piled on top of one another haphazardly before the cartel used a backhoe to cover up their resting place. Thank you. Who knows what is going on in American Samoa. [2] It is a fact that some of the cartels initial members were elite Mexican troops who were trained in the early 1990s by Americas 7th Special Forces Group. The FBI and the IRS eventually built a case against Morales and others, leading to his arrest. He said that they spoke over the phone every day. In August 2010, the Mexican military stumbled upon the bodies of 72 people bound and executed. However, according to Insight Crime's profile, the cartel's influence has been compromised by arrests and infighting, limiting their territory to Tijuana, a vital smuggling city on the US-Mexico border. Rodriguez said that when he asked a commander about Reyna's son who disappeared, the commander said for him to stop asking about it, because they just finished "cooking him". Based in northwest Mexico's Sinaloa state, the Sinaloa Cartel is widely considered to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, according to Insight Crime. More terrifying is their ease of operations in countries like the US. This is a unique and distressing fact about the deadly gang. The load belonged to De Leon. The 34-year-old, known as "Chano", was a regional boss in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras. WebLos Zetas have also carried out multiple massacres and attacks on civilians and rival cartels, such as: the 2010 San Fernando massacre (24 August), where 72 migrants were found San Fernando woman Alma Miriam Ruiz holding a photo of her daughter Dalia missing since 2010. the Mexican boys forced to eat human flesh as a cartel initiation. They picked us up and told us we had to work for someone, for Los Zetas, De Leon said in court. Sadism was their brand. So how does Morales, who came into power just last year after his predecessor was shot and killed by authorities and his Los Zetas fit into the underworld that is Mexican cartels? In August 2017, the cartel kidnapped 17 people and kept them in a stash house in Nuevo Laredo. An armored police vehicle carrying Los Zetas member dgar Huerta Montiel in June 2011. The Zetas were notorious for their brutality, even by cartel standards. From the mid-1980s to his death in 1993, Pablo Escobar was the "King of Cocaine," earning an estimated $420 million a week, according to Insider. De Leon said that Millan-Vasquez would smile and laugh as he performed these killings. The Mexican military has been trying unsuccessfully for years to dismantle an extensive network of radio antennas built and operated by the Los Zetas drug cartel. It would occur to many as an unacceptable surprise that Los Zetas recruits members in the United States. They ordered the informant be killed along with anyone and everyone associated with him. However, PBS wrote that the Cali cartel did not inherit Escobar's public flair for violence, preferring to adopt a business faade in their international operation. The find is indicative of cartel operations in Texas and the United States as a whole. The women have been identified as Lourdes Gregorio Garcia Amaya from Texas, Raymunda Amaya Contreras, Maria Del Rosario Carrizales Amaya, Griselda Carrizales Amaya and Maria Cirila Contreras Garcia. The two men who were also gunned down have been identified as Cruz Felipe Pizana Saldivar and Angel Carrizales Amaya. Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. WebCartel: Los Zetas Killed: Oct. 7, 2012 Lazcano was the leader of the Los Zetas cartel. The import of this for the American people is that no matter what measures the US government takes to destroy the vast network of drug smuggling within the country, the effort may be fruitless, as it is no longer a case of fighting a foreign entity. Locals also reported of the many corpses found in the Cauca River, which runs through Cali. We rely on the generosity of our readers who believe that this work is important. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin, Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. It had only been a year since officials in the Mexican city found 72 victims of the Los Zetas drug cartel buried in the dirt. As the two factions continue their fierce fighting, gunmen from the two groups have taken to social media and banners to deliver threats to each other. In August 2010, the gang massacred 72 kidnapped migrants at a remote ranch in Northeastern Mexico after they refused to pay a ransom for their release or take jobs as hit men. They recovered deleted material, which included death threats from the defendant and information regarding Zetas operations. Drug cartels influencing politics paints a picture of total disaster. WebIn 2010, the Zetas killed 72 undocumented immigrant workers in the San Fernando massacre. However, despite its success in cocaine and methamphetamine, La Familia Michoacana's power was curtailed by yet another splinter group, The Knights Templar. Then come the Zetas, with no background in narcotics, and they start chopping peoples heads off, Grayson said. Several other executions and attacks during the weekend brought the total number of casualties to 19 and close to 24 wounded by gunfire. All of the Texas Observers articles are available for free syndication for news sources under the following conditions: You can chip in for as little as 99 cents a month. Based in the western state of Jalisco, CJNG was founded by Nemesio Oseguera Ramos, whose ongoing leadership has placed him on Mexican and American most wanted lists, both of which offer millions of dollars for information. Melissa is a 2016-17 Lannan Fellow at The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. Initially formed by about 30 former members of an elite Mexican army unit, the gang used fear and intimidation to conduct business in defiance of government operations. It operates in more than half of the countrys 32 states. They told me to stop doing that," Reyna said in court. Los Zetas is the largest drug cartel in Mexico in terms of scale of operations. Millan-Vasquez was found guilty last July of murder, violence, drug and weapons trafficking, and employing minors in a drug crime a total of 10 counts. Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty ImagesLos Zetas cartel members and San Fernando Massacre suspects being presented to the press on June 30, 2011. Captured: July 15, 2013 In the past year, gunmen from Los Zetas Cartel performed unique retaliatory killings in response to their allys videotaped sexual assault behind bars. Alliances were formed on both sides, with the BLO allying with Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel working with the Gulf and Familia Michoacana cartels (via Insight Crime). Jair Cabrera/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesTributes to the 2011 San Fernando Massacre. Curiously, no bus line reported their buses or passengers missing. Breitbart Texas has consulted with relatives and friends of the Garcia family who said the Texas family had traveled to Ciudad Victoria with the children for the summer vacation. It was a solid lead, as cartels were known to take over ranches and convert them into makeshift jails or execution chambers. Alberto Islas, a Mexico City security analyst whos advised corporations in Tamaulipas, offers a more plausible and chilling motive for the massacres: Its just business. Some believe the victims were simply killed for refusing to join the cartel but, ultimately, San Fernando had become so violent that few journalists ever entered to investigate. Islas suspects the kidnappings and brutal murders are a warning to smugglers who havent paid their dues to the Zetas. In the same month, heavily armed gunmen fired upon Omar Garcia Harfuch, Mexico City's public security secretary, injuring him and killing two bodyguards and a passerby (via Insight Crime). The two claimed credible fear, telling agents that they feared for their lives if they were to stay in Mexico. Somewhere near San Fernando, which lies on the interstate to Matamoros, the buses were hijacked, and convoys of armed men snatched passengers. She was known for being the crazy white one. About two dozen have been captured or killed, including some from Los Zetas: Ivan Velazquez Caballero (aka El Taliban) He frequently supervised killing experiments wherein new recruits were ordered to kill people with a machete or sledgehammer. Former Zetas members testified Tuesday, claiming the cartel is responsible for a bloody massacre in Piedras Negras in 2011. In August 2010, the gang massacred 72 kidnapped migrants at a remote ranch in Whatever the motivations, the mass killings show just how little control the federal government exerts over Tamaulipas. Captured: Sept. 26, 2012 The implication of this is that Los Zetas continues to bolster its criminal operations through nontraditional and unexpected means. The Zetas have set a price for allowing smugglers to transport migrants into the United States, and the cartel expects its cut, Islas says. He made a mistake in his greedbelieving he was invincible and untouchable. With the Medellin leader gone, Insider noted how the rival Cali cartel took the reins of Colombia's booming cocaine industry. Instead, they were raped and beaten to death or vanished into a new life as cartel soldiers. WebLos Zetas are blamed for last week's brutal killings of the police chief in the southern Mexican city of Veracruz, his wife and four children. WebIn August 2011, armed men affiliated with the Zetas cartel set fire to a casino in the Mexican city of Monterrey, killing 52 people. Violence committed by the Juarez cartel is rife, especially from its La Linea faction, which has fighting the Sinaloa in Chihuahua City, contributing many deaths to the city's high 2020 murder rate (via FOX59). In 2015, U.S. law enforcement discovered a marijuana field in Texas with a market value of $2 million. Led by the infamous Pablo Escobar, the Medellin cartel is said to have killed thousands of people, including three Colombian presidential candidates, many judges and over 1,000 police officers (via Biography).
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