Thread: Zeta Gang Member Caught

http://www.newschannel5.tv/2006/8/30/28 ... er-Caught-

http://www.newschannel5.tv/Video/News/28132


Zeta Gang Member Caught
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 Posted: 07:22 PM


Stash House Bust

Man reportedly ran part of a human smuggling operation

ROMA - A feared Zeta gang member is in federal custody.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 has learned federal agents busted a man named Maximiliano Castillo-Jimenez. They say the gang member ran an illegal immigrant stash house in Roma.

The man is reportedly part of a notorious group of ex-Mexican military commandos. It's very rare a Zeta is arrested.

Sources tell us Castillo-Jimenez is from the Miguel Aleman area in Mexico and was part of the Zeta's human smuggling operation.

While no one will talk on camera about the arrest, a DPS officer who works in criminal intelligence admits the Zetas are getting more dangerous on this side.

He says, "The people we are encountering nowadays are more violent then we saw ten or twenty years ago... They are a big threat."

http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor ... ion=Valley

Zetas member's bond hearing expected today
August 31,2006
Andres R. Martinez
Monitor Staff Writer


McALLEN — A federal judge is scheduled to have a bond hearing today for a high-ranking member of the Mexican mercenary group "Los Zetas" accused of shuttling and hiding illegal immigrants from Miguel Aleman to Houston, authorities said.

Maximiliano Castillo-Jimenez, 28, was arrested Aug. 25 in connection with the June 30, 2005, breakup of a Roma house used to hide illegal immigrants. He shuttled immigrants from another house in Miguel Aleman to the one in Roma, where Jose Aguirre-Nunez would take them to Houston, according to the criminal complaint.

The case, which is being handled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, seems to be one of the first brought against a Zeta member in the United Sates.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, ICE and other state and local law enforcements agencies have identified the Zetas, a group of former elite Mexican military officers, as a group willing to facilitate immigrant and drug smuggling for the highest bidder.

Castillo was arrested on alien smuggling charges in connection with the 2005 breakup of a Roma stash house. A grand jury has already indicted several others. Those indictments point to a well-organized smuggling organization run by Aguirre.

The investigation began when a Honduran man escaped from the stash house on June 30, 2005, and told a Roma resident about the home’s existence. The resident called the Rio Grande City Border Patrol station, who sent agents to interview the immigrant. Border Patrol agents and Starr County drug task force members interviewed the immigrant and later that day executed a warrant on the house at the 800 block of Austin Street.

The agents found at least 26 immigrants from El Salvador and Honduras at the house and arrested Higinio Barrientos-Perez, also an illegal immigrant.

Barrientos told ICE agents that Aguirre, known as El Japo, paid him $200 to watch over the immigrants. Aguirre and his girlfriend, Rosalba "Rosie" Garcia-Perez, told him the immigrants were not to be released until their families paid the $1,600 smuggling fee, according to the complaint.

It was unclear from the complaint whether Aguirre has been arrested.

Garcia would bring Barrientos and the other guards food and cigarettes to tide them over as they watched the immigrants, the complaint says.

The immigrants went on to finger Castillo as the man who was moving them from Miguel Aleman to Roma and was in charge of both of the houses.

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Andres R. Martinez covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.