Thread: Deadly Zetas in U.S. Court

Deadly Zetas in U.S. Court

Zetas case continues

JASON BUCH,
LAREDO MORNING TIMES

Security was heavy Thursday as the nine defendants named so far in an indictment targeting the Gulf Cartel’s enforcers, the Zetas, appeared in federal court for pre-trial proceedings.At least half a dozen stone-faced U.S. Marshals kept watch over the defendants in U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez’s court, along with members of the Correction Corp. of America’s special operations response team, who wore body armor.

Prosecutors allege that the nine defendants named in the 47-count indictment are members or associates of the Zetas, a violent wing of the Gulf Cartel believed to control most of the narcotics trafficking in Nuevo Laredo.

It appears that 23 names remain blacked out on the indictment. All defendants are charged in a drug trafficking conspiracy, which prosecutors allege involved violent crimes and money laundering, and face life in prison if convicted.

Six defendants were seated in the courtroom’s gallery, two in each row, kept at opposite ends of the benches. All were wearing prison uniforms, most of them bright orange.

Three more sat past the bar with the attorneys and court staff, including Edward Carreon Ibarra and Aurora Del Bosque, the only female defendant named so far, who faces a drug conspiracy charge and one count of accessory after the fact.

Carreon bore the marks of a beating a family member said he received at the hands of other inmates in a CCA facility. Cuts were visible on his head.

His attorney, Jesus M. Dominguez, said after Thursday’s status conference that Carreon’s beating was a “misunderstanding,â€

I wonder how many of these people are real original Zetas the Mexican special forces who were trained wih American help. By now the majority are second generation gangsters who were trained by the soldiers who had defected to the drug cartel.