Thread: Accused Zeta had US training, report says

Accused Zeta had US training, report says

By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
Posted: 02/23/2011 02:26:40 AM MST

A retired Mexican army officer and Zetas cartel member accused of plotting to kill a Mexican law official had received U.S. military training, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable.

The cable, "Setting the Record Straight on Zetas and U.S. Military Training," came from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and was provided by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.

"Separate sensitive collateral reporting indicates that Rogelio Lopez Villafana, a former Mexican infantry lieutenant who retired from the Mexican elite special forces, was forcibly recruited into Los Zetas," the cable classified secret said.

"Lopez was later arrested and implicated in a plan to assassinate the former Deputy Attorney General for Legal and International Affairs, Jose Luis

The cable said Lopez received counter-narcotics operations training at Fort Bragg, N.C., and retired from the Mexican army in 2007.

Vasconcelos had collaborated with U.S. officials in El Paso on previous investigations of the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel. He was a prosecutor who also investigated the women's murders and cartel-related kidnappings in Juárez. He died in a 2008 plane crash in Mexico City that also killed another Mexican official.

The U.S. Embassy's electronic database, which dates back only to 1996, indicated that the U.S. government trained nearly 5,000 Mexican military members, including 422 elite special forces soldiers.

"Critics of U.S. military training and conspiracy theorists have long speculated that members of the notoriously violent cartel Los Zetas once received U.S.-funded special forces training," the cable said. "Since we cannot know the name of every Mexican soldier who has joined Los Zetas, we cannot irrefutably reject this possibility."

The Zetas, who are fighting the Gulf cartel for control of drug-trafficking lanes in eastern Mexico, are suspects in the Feb. 15 shooting attack that killed one ICE agent and wounded another in Mexico.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/communities/ci_17456766

We train them, supply them with weapons, what is our governments gets in return?