Thread: Powder Keg: War between Gulf Cartel, Zetas marks one year

Powder Keg: War between Gulf Cartel, Zetas marks one year
Comments 6
March 07, 2011 1:07 PM
The Brownsville Herald

Situations of risk, caravans, blockades, banners.

Those terms became common refrains in the drug-war lexicon after two of the top criminal organizations in Northern Mexico went to war a year ago.

In late February 2010, the Gulf Cartel and its former ally, the Zetas, began a bloody struggle in northern Tamaulipas for the main drug trafficking routes into South Texas.

A year later, ICE agent Jaime Zapata was killed and fellow agent Victor Avila injured when they were fired upon — allegedly by Zetas — while traveling in the central Mexican state of San Luis PotosÃ*. The death of Zapata, a Brownsville native, triggered a crackdown on organized crime on both sides of the border.

It was a bloody exclamation point on the anniversary of the Zetas-Gulf split, which, according to various sources, was a powder keg waiting to explode.



HISTORY

According to a source with firsthand knowledge of criminal activity in Tamaulipas, the Zetas cartel — which began as the enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel — broke away from its parent organization after Gulf leaders looked to form a truce with a former enemy: the Sinaloa Cartel.

The source said that by that time, the Zetas gang had strayed from its original objective of enforcement for the Gulf Cartel and had diversified into several criminal enterprises, including kidnapping, extortion and robbery.

In late 2009, Zeta bosses Heriberto “El Lazcaâ€

After Gulf-Zetas split, Valley law enforcers ramped up "spillover" prep
Comments 7
March 06, 2011 8:39 PM
The Brownsville Herald

The violence that broke out one year ago in Northern Mexico had an effect not just on the Mexican people, but also on local law enforcement agencies in the Rio Grande Valley, which had to step up their game to prevent spillover violence.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said the violence that broke out south of the border quickly reached new heights.

“That level of violence taking place in the Republic of Mexico is something that had never been seen before,â€

"Everything I've been reading here sounds like they're getting ready to start smashing the border and coming in here at they're own free will!"

"Get out the Hookha pipes and crack pipes it sounds like our POTUS wants us all to be high on drugs so we don't notice what he's doing to our country!"