Thread: The Zetas...coming soon to an American city near you

Cartel's enforcers outpower their boss

Zetas grow into paramilitary group now hitting Mexico's casinos


12:03 AM CDT on Monday, June 11, 2007
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – Even in a country accustomed to gangland violence, the news is disquieting.

In coordinated strikes, armed men rob at least five casinos in four states, killing a bystander and escaping with bundles of money. In the northern state of Sonora, an attack on a police station leaves five officers dead and announces the arrival of a new criminal force in the region. The likely culprit in both cases: the Zetas, a ruthless organization that was virtually unheard of just five years ago.

The Zetas, created by a group of highly trained military deserters to work as enforcers for the Gulf drug cartel, have become so powerful that their old handlers are quickly losing control, authorities said.

The group, first concentrated along Mexico's border with Texas, has evolved into a powerful threat in its own right, spreading its brand of brutal violence into 31 Mexican states as it battles for control of new regions and key border entry points, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.

"The Zetas have clearly become the biggest, most serious threat to the nation's security," said Raul Benitez, a Mexico security expert at American University in Washington, D.C.

"Now they want to control the nation's drug routes and along the way topple the traditional cartel leaders," said Mr. Benitez. "We're witnessing a classic coup under way."

Among the newly targeted border areas is Ciudad Juárez, the city across the border from El Paso and long the stronghold of the Juárez cartel, authorities said. The Zetas also have made inroads in Acapulco, Monterrey and Veracruz, usually with a flurry of high-profile killings of police and other officials.

Working with brutal Central American gangs and former death squads from Guatemala known as Kaibiles, the Zetas have morphed into a 2,000-member paramilitary organization operating in most of Mexico, including the Federal District, Mexico City, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and academic experts who monitor the group. Mexican authorities declined to estimate the size of the force.

"The combination of Kaibiles and former Mexican elite military units forms a deadly triangle that represents the perfect threat to Mexico," Mr. Benitez said.

Former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas, who recruited the original Zetas – numbering about 50 and many with training in the U.S., Israel and Colombia – was extradited to the U.S. in January. With him out of the picture, the group has become more independent, officials say.

Growing rift
One U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said clear signs have emerged of a growing rift between the Gulf cartel and their enforcers. The mistrust is so great that leaders of both organizations – Jorge Eduardo Costilla-Sanchez, known as El Coss, the reputed leader of the Gulf cartel, and Heriberto Lazcano, known as El Verdugo, "The Executioner," head of the Zetas, communicate strictly via teleconference or through intermediaries.

"The Gulf cartel created the lion, but now the lion has wised up and controls the handler," said the U.S. law enforcement official, on condition of anonymity. "This has resulted in the lion roaming free and leaving a bloody trail of chaos. The Zetas don't ask the Gulf cartel permission for anything anymore. They simply inform them of their activities, whenever they feel like it."

Elements of the Zetas have been operating in U.S. cities as well, including Dallas, where hits have been ordered for at least three years now, according to a 2005 U.S. Justice Department memo. In March, a man who killed a Dallas police officer had apparent ties to a possible associate of the Zetas, Dallas police said.

Across Mexico, the Zetas' tentacles have spread from Nuevo Laredo and the state of Tamaulipas to more than 24 other states, including Nuevo León, Tabasco, Veracruz, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua and even Mexico City, which previously was largely exempt from the executions recorded almost daily elsewhere.

Police recently found unexploded grenades in two subway stations, and there has been a steady number of drug-style executions. Signs have gone up in key intersections urging the Zetas out of the nation's capital.

In Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, at least six law enforcement officials have been killed in the last two weeks, apparently the work of the Zetas, U.S. authorities say. Police officers are on high alert, and many have canceled vacations.

"Their modus operandi is very similar to operations in [the states of] Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Tabasco," said Julio Fentanes, a spokesman for the Juárez's municipal police. "Their style of operation, use of brand-new stolen SUVs [and] high-powered weapons, is similar to those of other commando groups that we have heard of in other territories."

The Gulf cartel is battling the Sinaloa cartel for control of key drug distribution routes, including Interstate 35, which begins across the border from Nuevo Laredo. Nationwide, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Mexico this year, according to an unofficial tally by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

Since winning by a narrow margin in last year's election, Felipe Calderón has made confronting the drug cartels the focal point of his presidency. He has deployed troops in several states, including Michoacán, Guerrero and Tabasco, and the cities of Tijuana and Monterrey.

So far, most of those killed have been drug traffickers, soldiers and law enforcement officials, but a few civilians have been killed.

On Wednesday, an 18-year-old student identified as Karen Siller Gomez was killed as she and her sister were entering the Caliente casino bar in Saltillo, Coahuila. Last week, casinos in the states of Nuevo León, Veracruz, Coahuila and Baja California were robbed in what a U.S. law enforcement official says were coordinated hits by the Zetas to pressure casino owners to let them in on the business.

On Sunday, Mexico City's Reforma newspaper reported that 26 casinos in 11 states had shut down because of pressure from drug cartels.

Control regions
Mexico's leading news magazine, Proceso, quoted Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora as telling Mexican legislators that the Zetas are in control of several regions of the country and have also been "taking control of several of our police forces, corrupting them. ... They're taking our police away." A spokeswoman later confirmed Mr. Medina Mora's comments.

The Zetas' strategy is to gain control of distribution routes into the U.S. by controlling border entry points and transshipment points, U.S. and Mexican authorities said.

In recent months, a shadowy new group known as La Gente Nueva, or "the new people," has entered the scene. La Gente Nueva, according to both U.S. and Mexican authorities, represents an effort to counter the Zetas' growing reach. The band of mostly former police officers appears to be receiving funding from the Sinaloa cartel and has set out also to avenge the lives of hundreds of police officers killed by the Zetas, authorities said.

La Gente Nueva is also known for brutality, with torture and decapitation of its victims shown on videos, some of them posted on Web sites. Some authorities have compared the group to Colombia's Los Pepes, a vigilante group formed in the 1990s to track down and kill drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Los Pepes evolved into the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a paramilitary group whose human rights abuses continue to haunt the South American nation.

The latest threatening note allegedly written by La Gente Nueva was left on a decapitated head in the Gulf state of Veracruz. It accused the state's top law enforcement officials of protecting the Zetas, saying, "[The officials] who work for the disgusting Zetas are going to end up just like this guy."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 36238.html

Zetas are in Tennessee. There is a large poplulation of MS 13 and other gangs in Tennessee.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

INVASION USA
Mexican drug commandos expand ops in 6 U.S. states
Feds say violent, elite paramilitary units establish narcotics routes north of border
Posted: June 21, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – The ultra-violent, U.S.-trained elite, Mexican paramilitary commandos known as the "Zetas," responsible for hundreds of murders along the border this year, have expanded their enforcement efforts on behalf of a drug cartel by setting up trafficking routes in six U.S. states.

A U.S. Justice Department memo says the U.S.-trained units have recently moved operations into Houston, San Antonio and the states of California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. They have been operating in Dallas for at least two years, according to the feds.


The original Zetas are former Mexican army commandos, some apparently trained in the U.S. by Army special forces to combat drug gangs. Members of a broader Zetas organization have worked for the Gulf cartel since 2001. They provide firepower, security and the force needed to oversee shipments of narcotics and smuggled aliens along the border and up Interstate 35, which runs through Texas and Oklahoma.

According to FBI officials, the Zetas are attempting to consolidate their grip on the smuggling route along I-35. Anyone caught not paying the 10 percent commission they charge on all cargo – drugs or humans – is killed, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources.

The Zetas have also brought their cold-blooded killing tactics to the U.S., say federal law enforcement authorities – murdering rival drug dealers and sometimes innocent bystanders.

"Texas law enforcement officials report that the Zetas have been active in the Dallas area since 2003," said the Justice Department intelligence bulletin circulated among U.S. law enforcement officials. "Eight to ten members of the Zetas have been involved in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs in the area ... for contract killings."

The feds say the group has begun establishing its own trafficking routes into the United States and will protect them at any cost.

"U.S. law enforcement have reported bounties offered by Los Zetas of between $30,000 and $50,000 for the killing of Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers," the bulletin said. "If a Zeta kills an American law enforcement officer and can successfully make it back to Mexico, his stature within the organization will be increased dramatically."

The Zetas take their name from a radio code once used by its members. While originally there were 68, the Zetas have trained a second generation of commandos – many of them sons and nephews of those trained by U.S. military forces to combat drug trafficking in Mexico. U.S. law enforcement officials say they now number more than 700. Their numbers also include some Mexican army deserters and former federal police officers.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities say the Zetas operate special training camps in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Michoacán, where newly recruited Zetas take intensive six-week training courses in weapons, tactics and intelligence gathering.

The Zetas conducting a bloody war for control of the entire southern border in an effort to secure a monopoly on drug-smuggling and people-smuggling routes, according to law enforcement officials.

At least 600 have been killed this year in a wave of violence waged by the Zetas gang, headed by reputed drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, said Mexico's Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca.

Among the victims of the U.S-trained Zetas have been other suspected smugglers, hit men, police, soldiers and civilians on both sides of the 2,000-mile border.

There are widespread reports of the commandos making cross-border runs into U.S. territory in military-style vehicles, armed with automatic weapons.

The U.S. government spent millions of dollars training Los Zetas to intercept drugs, some of them coming from Mexico's southern border, before they could reach the U.S. The U.S. government has also sent U.S. Border Patrol agents to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala to train law enforcement and military forces to intercept human smugglers destined to reach the U.S.

Guzman, whose nickname means "Shorty," bribed guards to escape from prison in 2001. He is one of Mexico's most-wanted fugitives. U.S. authorities have offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

The spike in killings and kidnappings in northern Mexico in recent months has made headlines and prompted federal agents and soldiers to patrol the streets of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. Recently, a new police chief in Nuevo Laredo was assassinated nine hours after taking office.

Among the 600 people murdered in gang shootings across the Mexican border this year, many were slain execution-style, with their hands tied behind their backs.

The violence along the border has reached a point where some are questioning President Vicente Fox's ability to govern the country.

A senior U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official, Anthony Placido, told Congress last week that Mexico's corrupt police forces were "all too often part of the problem rather than part of the solution" in fighting the drug cartels.

Fox won office in 2000, ending 71 years of one-party rule and promising to clamp down on the multibillion-dollar cross-border trade in cocaine, marijuana and heroin.

While initially winning praise for putting bosses like Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas behind bars, his crime-busting reputation has been undermined by the alarming rise in violence, along with evidence Fox has failed to clean up Mexico's police forces.

Faced with the fallout on its southern frontier, the State Department has twice issued travel warnings for the Mexican border, where more than 30 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped.

Mexico's apparent inability to curb the bloodshed on the 2,000-mile border is affecting the financial markets. Banking group HSBC said "staggering" levels of violence could raise questions about Mexico's stability in the run-up to next year's presidential election. Fox is constitutionally barred from running for re-election.

His approval rating has taken a hit, dropping 3 points to 56 percent in a poll in May, with many Mexicans complaining of safety fears, particularly in the north.

Fox has pledged a "mother of all battles" against the drug traffickers he says are openly challenging the government.

"We have taken on the challenge and we will do battle against all the cartels' criminals and against organized crime," Fox said in a speech Friday.

He sent hundreds of troops and federal agents to the states of Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Baja California last week after suspected drug hit men killed the police chief of Nuevo Laredo.

Despite the move, drug gangs shot and killed at least 11 people across the three states during the week, prompting observers to declare the operation, dubbed "Mexico Secure," a failure.

http://wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.as ... E_ID=44899

This doesn't make sense. Los Zetas are heavily armed military renegades drivng jeeps with mounted .50 cal machine guns. You can't exactly do that act in Tennessee.

The article mentions Tennessee and Zetas.

Psalm 139:14

He may need more than a tank.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

We have it all here in Tennessee. Learned from Sheriff Tim Gobble ("Bring me your tired, your poor," "how do we know they are illegal" global, elitist elected official) of Bradley County today that this is a capital area for methamphetamine and along with that we already know that illegal aliens are big drug runners in this area, up and down I-75, from Florida, Atlanta, Texas and the drug cartels are using the Zetas for protection. The Sheriff Gobble has spoken on drugs from Mexico being used in and run through Cleveland, TN and Bradley County.

Cleveland, Tennessee, home of Lee University? Is nothing sacred anymore?

I can't understand how or why los Zetas would be operating in country. They are military special ops types which operate on the border. Their military tactics are for operations in that theater. Jeeps and fender-mounted .50 cal machine guns don't drive on I-75, or on I-35 either, for that matter. For what would they use their Gen-3 nightvision scopes and their expensive comms gear? They couldn't refill their Huey helicopter at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, either.

Part of their act on the border is impersonating the Mexican Federales and implicating them in border battles, drug running, sex trafficking, etc.. That ruse would not work anywhere more than a few miles inside the U.S..

I know that MS-13 operates in Charlotte and other cities, but I still don't believe that los Zetas have any significant presence inside the U.S.. That's just not their scene.

But prove me wrong, and I'll admit my mistake.

Bradley County is known to be the place to come for illegal aliens to receive fraudulent documents, licenses, marriage certificates, stolen identities, and anything else.

Associates with The Church of God in Cleveland,TN admit that they bring illegal aliens to town. The Mayor of Cleveland, Tom Rowland, is co chair to a group, ORMS, that is allegedly assiting illegal aliens. Both the Mayor of Cleveland and the Sheriff Tim Gobble of Bradley County, wonder how you can tell an illegal alien.

Psalm 91