After Two Year Struggle Gulf Cartel, Zetas at Impasse

The Monitor

Two years have passed since the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas broke their alliance and turned their weapons on each other. During that time, there have been untold firefights, executions, kidnappings and other violent events as the two rival organizations continue to fight for control of lucrative drug trade routes.

In recent months, the struggle between the rival cartels has reached an impasse. While the Zetas appear to be the larger of the organizations, the alliance that the Gulf Cartel has with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Knights Templar, which is made up of the remaining members of the Familia Michoacana, evens the numbers out.

Despite the impasse and uncertain future of both the drug war and the war between cartels, much has changed near the Tamaulipas-Texas border since the struggle between the cartels began.

HISTORY

The Zetas were a group of Mexican military and police deserters who were recruited by the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s and hired by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who was the leader of the Gulf Cartel, to be his personal guard. After Cárdenas Guillén’s capture in 2003, the Zetas became an independent organization that worked alongside the Gulf Cartel. Cárdenas Guillén is serving a prison sentence in the United States on drug charges.

Rumors of an imminent split began in October 2009, but it didn’t materialize until February 2010.

 In an apparent misunderstanding, the late Samuel "Metro 3" Flores, who at the time was Gulf Cartel plaza boss for Reynosa, killed Zeta lieutenant Sergio "Concord" Peña Mendoza in late January.

According to Mexico’s Federal Police, however, Peña Mendoza had been arrested in March 2009. While the exact date is not known, soon after Mendoza’s death, Zetas leaders Heriberto Lazcano and Miguel Angel "El 40" Treviño issued an ultimatum to the leadership of the Gulf Cartel: Give us the head of Metro 3 in 30 days or prepare for war.

On the day of the deadline, the Gulf Cartel lashed out, attacking Zetas in San Fernando, Valle Hermoso, Ciudad Mier and other cities throughout Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, forcing them to almost instantly pull their forces out of those cities. They retreated to the areas around Ciudad Victoria, where the Zetas had a more solid ground from which to counterattack. During the weeks that the initial clashes occurred, local residents were shocked at the brutality being displayed by both sides.

In San Fernando, the forces of the late Antonio Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cárdenas Guillén strung the bodies of fallen Zetas and their associates from light poles. In Ciudad Mier, Gulf Cartel soldiers hacked several Zetas to pieces and left their body parts hanging on trees and around small religious altars in the rural areas.

Large convoys of gunmen clashed in rural areas and city streets as the struggle continued until early April, when the Zetas were able to stand their ground around Ciudad Victoria, Tampico and Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas, as well as in the state of Nuevo Leon. The Zetas then regrouped and began a more systematic infiltration attempt aimed at taking control once again of certain key areas. The criminal organization sought control of San Fernando and Ciudad Mier, thus pushing the Gulf Cartel back to Matamoros, Reynosa and the Frontera Chica, which is the area around Camargo, Miguel Alemán and Ciudad Mier.

Since then, the two groups and their allies have battled for control of San Fernando, Tampico, Valle Hermoso and the Frontera Chica, all while still moving considerable amounts of drugs.

 According to various news releases from Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office — PGR — and the Mexican military, 2- or 3-ton seizures of marijuana became the norm in the Frontera Chica.

According to the news releases from the PGR, each month the agency incinerates between 20 and 30 tons of marijuana that have been seized by the Mexican military in the northern part of Tamaulipas.

According to various Rio Grande Valley police departments, the price of drugs on the streets has remained constant for the past two years.

SAN FERNANDO

One of the main areas over which the two groups have fought is the rural area around San Fernando, Tamps., some 90 miles south of McAllen.

According to a source outside law enforcement who is from there, San Fernando is a virtual spiderweb of dirt roads that connect the city to areas near Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros, making it prized territory.

During the summer of 2010, the Zetas, who controlled the area, made headlines across the world when in August, the Mexican military found the bodies of 72 migrants inside a warehouse after clashing with gunmen at a Zeta ranch.

According to news releases from the Mexican military at the time, the Zetas had kidnapped Central American migrants bound for the United States and executed them.

Approximately six months later, the Mexican military stumbled upon dozens of mass graves containing a total of more than 190 bodies. Top Mexican officials, including then-press secretary Alejandro Poire and Mexico’s Attorney General Marisela Morales, said the Zetas had been responsible for the murders.

According to information from PGR provided at the time, the bodies were those of bus passengers who had been taken by the Zetas, who were looking for rival cartel members trying to make their way north. As a result of the two San Fernando massacres, in December, the Mexican army built a permanent military base in the area.

But the firefights persist.

SPILLOVER

San Fernando is the area where U.S. missionary Nancy Davis was fatally wounded during a carjacking attempt in early January 2011 by the Zetas. Davis’ husband, Sam, drove back to Reynosa and across the international bridge in Pharr seeking help.

According to a travel advisory issued in early February by the U.S. Department of State, there have been 120 deaths of U.S. citizens in Mexico. The advisory was not specific on the information regarding the deaths and it couldn’t be confirmed with U.S. State Department officials if Nancy Davis was counted as one of the
120 dead.

There have been two cases in which U.S. authorities have confirmed a direct spillover of violence; however, there are other cases that have not been classified as such, but that do have a direct connection to cartel activity.

(Photo below is of El Cos)

On Oct. 29, 2010, the Gulf Cartel had three gunmen execute Omar Castillo Flores and his bodyguard Jose Guadalupe Lopez along F.M. 511 in Olmito, a short distance from the Cameron County Jail where Castillo’s brother, Oscar "El Apache" Castillo Flores, was being detained. Oscar Castillo was a member of the Gulf Cartel but joined the Zetas after the death of his older brother, Alberto "Beto Fave" Castillo, who briefly was plaza boss in Matamoros before fellow Gulf Cartel members killed him.

A second confirmed case of spillover occurred Oct. 30 when an Hidalgo County Sheriff’s deputy was shot during a firefight with gang members under the employ of the Gulf Cartel. Sheriff Lupe Treviño said the gang members had been hired to recover stolen marijuana loads. The gang members had kidnapped several people and fired at deputies responding to the call.

That same weekend, a man was kidnapped in the rural county area and was taken to Reynosa, where police found him in the trunk of a car at the Hidalgo International Bridge.

On Sept. 27, Jorge Zavala was killed in a volley of gunfire along U.S. Expressway 83 as he made his way to his home in Mission from a gentleman’s bar in Pharr. Valley Freedoms Newspapers quoted sources outside law enforcement in stating that the murder was in connection to a power struggle inside the Gulf Cartel. McAllen police refused to confirm or deny the information published.

U.S. local, state and federal authorities now have coordinated contingency plans in the event that a shootout in Mexico shows the potential of spilling over.

According to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, law enforcement departments work together in those cases and constantly review their procedures as a way of being prepared for any violent incidents along the border.

FUTURE?

The ongoing struggle over drug territories has now become a hot political topic in Mexico as the country prepares for its presidential elections this summer.

The outcome of the elections likely will determine the direction of the ongoing war on drugs, said George W. Grayson, a university professor at the College of William and Mary and a regular speaker on politics at the U.S. Department of State. Grayson is the author of Mexico: Narco Violence and A Failed State?

More than likely, Enrique Peña Nieto from the Revolutionary Institutional Party — PRI — will win the election because he has a well-oiled PR machine and is considered the golden boy, Grayson said.

Peña hasn’t described his strategy for the drug war, and his potential cabinet has not been made public, he said.

Many questions have risen regarding the PRI’s past links to organized crime.

During the more than 70 years that PRI was in power, the president had total control, Grayson said.

The PRI lost the presidential seat in 2000 to National Action Party — PAN — candidate Vicente Fox, who is from the same party as the current president, Felipe Calderón, whose term ends this year.

During the rule of PRI, the government imposed a set of unspoken rules that turned a blind eye to drug trafficking as long as the public was not affected, violence was kept to a minimum and drugs were not sold to children. According to the author, that dynamic changed when PAN came into power.

Grayson said if PAN candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota wins, she would likely continue Calderón’s strategy and look into creating a real police force that could address security concerns instead of leaving it up the military.

According to Grayson, Calderón wants to leave the presidency on a good note and is putting pressure on the military and federal authorities to capture legendary capo Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera in hopes that the capture of the prized capo will help Vazquez win the election.

In Grayson’s opinion, while the northern states in Mexico have seen a large amount of violence, the central states, where the country’s financial and political elite live, have remained mostly untouched.

Much like in the case of Colombia, real change won’t come until the elite experience drug violence and put all their effort into solving the problem, he said. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the South American nation was involved in a bloody drug war at the hands of kingpin Pablo Escobar. In 1991 and 1992, the two years prior to the death of Esocabar, the country saw more than 50,000 murders.

According to Grayson, during Colombia’s dark time, the struggle soon involved the public as bombings and other terrorist attacks were carried out by cartel members. Escobar was slain in 1993 by Colombian forces with technical help from U.S. Special Forces.

According to Grayson, Colombia has come along since those days in an effort to control violence.