Captured: Sept. 26, 2012 You name it, the Zetas did it.. Violence committed by the Juarez cartel is rife, especially from its La Linea faction, which has fighting the Sinaloa in Chihuahua City, contributing many deaths to the city's high 2020 murder rate (via FOX59). The eventual split between the groups was described by theCongressional Research Serviceas"most violent in the history of organized crime in Mexico. 2021 The Texas Observer. Millan-Vasquez was found guilty last July of murder, violence, drug and weapons trafficking, and employing minors in a drug crime a total of 10 counts. Trevino Morales became head of the Los Zetas cartel after the death of long-time leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano in October 2012. In early April, Mexican military officials made another grisly discovery in the once sleepy farming community of San Fernando: a series of mass graves among the mesquite brush. However, recently, theyve taken their drug manufacturing activities to highly advanced countries like the United States. The heartless drug lord is claimed to have personally killed 2,000 people, in addition to ordering and supervising thousands of other murders. 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The implication of this is that Los Zetas continues to bolster its criminal operations through nontraditional and unexpected means. One official said, "The valley is the most dangerous region in Colombia in terms of drug violence. He was recruited to Los Zetas, where he rose to commander. The rest of us agreed.". They kidnapped a local farmers son and demanded $10,000, and when he gave them $5,000 everything he had they sent him half of his son.. Information obtained from authorities points to the victims being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Times wrote how Escobar had always dreamed of being the President of Colombia, and this ambition showed in his twisted flair for governance. Los Zetas is a criminal gang that manufactures and smuggles illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and marijuana, among others. Los Zetas is a powerful Mexican drug cartel that has made special use of fear to achieve its business goals. Initially formed by about 30 former members of an elite Mexican army unit, the gang used fear and intimidation to conduct business in defiance of government operations. Tomas Yarrington, former governor of Tamaulipas, is currently facing multiple drug trafficking and money laundering charges in the United States. Thats bad for the bottom line., Drug cartels have famously eluded capture by the Mexican government as the problem has crossed the border and headed north: 1,000 U.S cities reported the presence of a Mexican cartel in 2010, according to this graphic by the National Post. newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. Since then, BLO members have either been killed, jailed or defected to new splinter groups, such as the Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos, which dabble in extortion, kidnapping and lethal violence. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. It had only been a year since officials in the Mexican city found 72 victims of the Los Zetas drug cartel buried in the dirt. The gang often kidnaps and holds poor migrants who try to operate outside the system for ransom. He frequently supervised killing experiments wherein new recruits were ordered to kill people with a machete or sledgehammer. The Zetas were involved in 20 different criminal activities, George Grayson, an expert on the Zetas and professor of government at the College of William & Mary, said. In April 2019, CJNG killed 14 people in Minatitlan, a Zetas territory. Cartel: Los Zetas Earlier in life, he was trained in a Mexican Special Forces unit to fight drug-trafficking organizations. They told me to stop doing that," Reyna said in court. Mostly Central American immigrants, they were traversing the state of Tamaulipas to cross into Texas. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st, The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. However, PBS wrote that the Cali cartel did not inherit Escobar's public flair for violence, preferring to adopt a business faade in their international operation. The gunmen injured 4 others in the attack. He alleged that the victims were abducted from buses and killed for refusing to join the cartel or pay their way out. By that point, however, more bodies had surfaced. There have been several arrests of purported Zeta members in the region but no trials. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin, Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Rather than prioritizing corruption like its competitors, Los Zetas has preferred to use paramilitary violence to seize territory and intimidate rivals, according toInsight Crime. Reyna discovered that his son's co-worker and girlfriend were also missing. "[The government] told me not to go asking questions about my son. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port, A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador, A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk, The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron, Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. He claimed that he was blindfolded, handcuffed, driven to random locations around Piedras Negras, stripped of the blindfold, and forced to kneel and watch these brutal murders. The find is indicative of cartel operations in Texas and the United States as a whole. In fact, CNNreported that Cali mobsters even invested in four 500-pound bombs, which they intended to somehow drop on Pablo Escobar. Much of the cartel's drugs trade depended on theLazaro Cardenas port, an asset that La Familia killed some 1,500 people to protect. Terrazas said the most corrupt was an elderly police officer and another named scar Jaramillo, who receive money from the organization to collaborate. Most troubling, however, is that The National Security Archive examining this memo stated that all 17 detained police officers had vanished from the public eye. SAN ANTONIO, Texas - In San Antonio today, a federal judge sentenced 34-year-old Marciano Millan Vasquez, a high ranking member and a former sicario for the Los Zetas drug cartel, to seven consecutive life imprisonment sentences for committing and aiding and abetting the commission of numerous murders and other acts of violence, They immediately went to war with the Los Zetas and proudly claimed responsibility for a swathe of mass killings, including the massacre of 15 Mexican cops in a single ambush. Reyna never heard back from the cartel, so he said that he contacted the Mexican government. Gore video - four women dismembered by the gang - xgore The cartel can trace its roots to the 1960s and '70s, when farming families entered the marijuana business. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government, the children have been identified as Galilea Garcia Amaya, Mariana Garcia Amaya (both from Texas), Maria Pizana Carrizales and Estephania Guadalupe Pizana Carrizales. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. The load belonged to De Leon. Inside bloody world of Cancuns cartel wars as gangsters behead Breitbart Texas Cartel Chroniclesare published in both English and in their originalSpanish. Largely funded by the international drug trade, Mexican cartels wield military-grade weapons in firefights with Mexicos Armed Forces that often leave collateral damage. In the human smuggling business, migrants pay $100 to $200 upfront, then pay the rest once theyve reached the United States. With population of 60,000, San Fernando is near the Texas border and epitomizes cartel carnage. Zetas The Gulf cartel is among the oldest cartels in Mexico and has held varying degrees of power since its origins in 1984, according toInsightCrime. Los Zetas called Mexico's most dangerous drug cartel The killings could be a warning and a way of depriving the smugglers of their livelihoods. All of the Texas Observers articles are available for free syndication for news sources under the following conditions: You can chip in for as little as 99 cents a month. Example video title will go here for this video. This radio communication technology has given them a edge over Mexican law enforcement agencies for years. Among the first deaths in the conflict was Edgar Guzman, El Chapo's son. In the same month, heavily armed gunmen fired upon Omar Garcia Harfuch, Mexico City's public security secretary, injuring him and killing two bodyguards and a passerby (via Insight Crime). Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. WebLos Zetas, originally founded by Mexican special forces deserters, some with US training, started as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, a crime group from northeastern The macabre bloodsport was detailed in The Houston Chronicle. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia, The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. In 2009, the Mexican government identified the countrys 37 most wanted criminals. You have to keep up with the Joneses. By 2020, the once leading cartel was wounded and facing competition from old rivals and new cartels, such as the Jalisco New General Cartel, often referred to as CJNG. They were the victims of a brutal new evolution in Mexican cartel violence. Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty. The Sun The fact that Los Zetas and other Mexican gangs sponsor politicians in Mexico is a huge problem. It operates in more than half of the countrys 32 states. They were given map reading courses, communications, and standard Special Forces training and instruction on how to use light and heavy weapons, machine guns, and several other automatic weapons. Known for his brutality, one technique he allegedly favored was the guiso, or stew, in which enemies would be placed in 55-gallon drums and burned alive. Not only are groups like Los Zetas interested in influencing politics, but Mexican politicians are equally interested in the dividends of the drug trade. Abstract. Busloads of people were declared missing in 2011 when their luggage went unclaimed in Reynosa and Matamoros. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless, Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican, A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California, A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho, Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open, Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally, A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. Curiously, no bus line reported their buses or passengers missing. Three of them are WebLos Zetas are blamed for last week's brutal killings of the police chief in the southern Mexican city of Veracruz, his wife and four children. The two men who were also gunned down have been identified as Cruz Felipe Pizana Saldivar and Angel Carrizales Amaya. The criminal indictment claims that the former governor took bribes from drug cartels in exchange for official protection. The first one they asked, he didn't want to work, and [cartel members] said, that's fine. He turned around, and they shot him in the head. De Leon said that Millan-Vasquez would smile and laugh as he performed these killings. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Marciano Millan-Vasquez 'brutally murdered anyone and everyone as it suited him and his cartel', Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. In April 2015, the group killed 15 police officers just weeks after killing five federal officers, which involved the use ofmachine guns and grenade launchers. The fact that Los Zetas was able to grow and nurture $2 million worth of marijuana in Texas is quite distressing. [10] The authorities havent succeeded in shutting down the cartels sophisticated radio communication due to two reasons: The first is that the radio equipment is easy to replace; the second is that the gang relies on free forced labor to build and maintain its radio equipment. Yarrington is reported to have allowed the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels to operate in his state without hindrance in return for bribes. Exposed by a Zetas member under a pseudonym, the details of the bus vanishings remain disputed. Who knows what is going on in American Samoa. Alberto Islas, a Mexico City security analyst whos advised corporations in Tamaulipas, offers a more plausible and chilling motive for the massacres: Its just business. They also acted as lookouts for the cartel and turned a blind eye to their illegal activities. Founded by the Orejuela brothers, the Cali cartel earned billions a year, inheriting the Medellin cartel's 80% market share and multi-ton shipments to the United States (via Seattle Times/Insider).