Sadism was their brand. Breitbart Texas has consulted with relatives and friends of the Garcia family who said the Texas family had traveled to Ciudad Victoria with the children for the summer vacation. A staff writer for All Thats Interesting, Marco Margaritoff has also published work at outlets including People, VICE, and Complex, covering everything from film to finance to technology. Partners must notify. You cannot underestimate the capabilities of a cartel whose founding fathers were trained by the U.S. military. Jesus Gonzalez/AFP/Getty ImagesFollowing the 2011 San Fernando Massacre, Federal Highway 101 was colloquially dubbed the highway of death or the devils road.. Attorney Jeff Blackburn, a crusader for the innocent, fought injustices across Texas in his improbable, utterly original, and often profane life. This gang violence occurs in their stronghold of Ciudad Jurez, where 1,200 people were murdered in 2018. In and around Cali if the mafia doesn't like you, you just disappear.". Los Zetas is a Mexican drug cartel known for its sophisticated crime machine and brutality. This radio communication technology has given them a edge over Mexican law enforcement agencies for years. With Americans running the organization, winning the war against Los Zetas would be much more difficult. The two men who were also gunned down have been identified as Cruz Felipe Pizana Saldivar and Angel Carrizales Amaya. "[The government] told me not to go asking questions about my son. Prosecutors asked De Leon why it took him so long to point out the defendant. Los Zetas was described by the US government in 2009 as "the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico". The rest of us agreed.". Los Zetas - Wikipedia 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). Captured: July 15, 2013 Aside from manufacturing illegal drugs and trafficking them, the gang is also into kidnapping and extortion. Cartel: Los Zetas As the cartel made connections across Mexico and the world, their death toll increased exponentially. How could such a tragedy occur in San Fernando not once but repeatedly? The gang often kidnaps and holds poor migrants who try to operate outside the system for ransom. Perhaps the most heinous La Linea crime occurred in Bavispe, where the group attacked a Mormon family inNovember 2019, killing nine people including several children, according to ABC. Not only does Los Zetas control key drug smuggling routes into the United States, but it now controls much of the illicit trade of sneaking migrant workers to the US. This has led to savage fighting between some 400 splinter gangs, each killing and maiming for scraps of territory (via Business Insider). The chief and 16 of his 25 men were questioned under suspicion of helping the Zetas abduct, kill, and bury the passengers. There is a popular consensus that Los Zetas is the most brutal and inhuman drug cartel in history. However, Insight Crime suggests that the large traditional cartels may be over as Mexico's criminal underworld becomes increasingly fragmented and scattershot. Los Zetas is indeed the worst Mexican drug cartel in history. Do you think free access to journalism like this is important? On March 13, 2013, De Leon and his father were apprehended by Border Patrol agents about three miles from the border near Comstock, TX. The macabre bloodsport was detailed in The Houston Chronicle. Zetas Jurors broke down in tears when De Leon described a mother and father being pulled by their hair and forced to watch their 6-year-old daughter dismembered alive before they faced the same, brutal death. The Gulf cartel is among the oldest cartels in Mexico and has held varying degrees of power since its origins in 1984, according toInsightCrime. About two dozen have been captured or killed, including some from Los Zetas: Ivan Velazquez Caballero (aka El Taliban) The violence has ebbed and flowed since that decade, including a shootout with Mexican police in 2008 which led to the arrest of Eduardo Arellano Felix (via Reuters). During the trial, witnesses said he had hacked apart his victims with an axe and burned their bodies in barrels, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Instead, they became the drug cartel they were supposed to fight. According to reports in the BBC and Insight Crime, the latest cartel trend is the fragmentation of the drug trafficking landscape, especially in Mexico. Then, in December 2015, Insider reported that La Familia founderCarlos Rosales Mendoza was found dead baring torture wounds. The memo indicated that local police acted as lookouts and helped in the interceptions of persons across all cases. Former Zetas members testified Tuesday, claiming the cartel is responsible for a bloody massacre in Piedras Negras in 2011. Shortly after the brutal execution, the CDN faction of the Los Zetas struck once more. Even the Sinaloas are now decapitating people, he said. It was the first time the Attorney Generals Office declassified documents relating to the incidents, and proved authorities not only tolerated cartel activity but assisted it. [4] The cartel recruits in US prisons and also courts street gang members for its drug trafficking activities in Mexico and the U.S. Between January 2009 and July 2015, Millan-Vasquez was responsible for the murders of at least 29 people, according to testimony from the trial reported by local broadcaster KSAT. With the Los Zetas fighting the Gulf Cartel for control of human trafficking networks, police corruption was no surprise. Some had been killed by sledgehammer. Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty ImagesAn armored police vehicle carrying Los Zetas member dgar Huerta Montiel in June 2011. With population of 60,000, San Fernando is near the Texas border and epitomizes cartel carnage. Moraless most preferred method of killing was to stuff victims in oil barrels and set them ablaze. The gunmen murdered a young girl by the name of Estefania Martinez Diaz, a woman by the name of Mara Campillo Mata and a man by the name of Miguel Angel Mendoza. 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. To make matters worse, the gang is also into migrant smuggling. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story: This article was originally published by the, Articles cannot be rewritten, edited or changed beyond alignments with house style books. A depressing fact about Los Zetas is that they are sometimes aided by Mexican police in the commission of unspeakable crimes. 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. A rival of the Sinaloa cartel, the Juarez group has been responsible for thousands of murders across its territory, which included 21 states at the height of its power. De Leon said that his two superiors were let go after they paid, but that he didn't have the $100,000 the cartel needed. Then, learn about the Mexican boys forced to eat human flesh as a cartel initiation. In 2014, years after the conviction of the Orejuela brothers, the US government declared that the Cali cartel was no longer a threat, lifting sanctions that had been imposed by the Clinton administration in 1995 (via ABC news/Insight Crime). Insight Crime catalogued the numerous violent acts of this period, including the cartel's failed assassination of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in 1993, which went awry when the gunmen erroneously targeted the car of a Catholic cardinal, shooting him to death. Los Zetas had begun to hijack buses along Federal Highway 101. The CJNG split from the Sinaloa Cartel after the killing of Ignacio Coronel, a capo whose death caused a power vacuum(via Insight Crime). The Texas Observer is known for its fiercely independent, uncompromising work which we are pleased to provide to the public at no charge in this space. The Most Dangerous Cartels To Ever Exist - Grunge.com Mostly Central American immigrants, they were traversing the state of Tamaulipas to cross into Texas. The gunmen injured 4 others in the attack. Top 10 Disturbing Facts About Los Zetas - Listverse 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. The 34-year-old, known as "Chano", was a regional boss in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras. Editors Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics Led by the Beltran Leyva brothers Marcos Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo, and Hctor, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO)was a vicious drug cartel in the Mexican state of Sinaloa (via Insight Crime/Wilson Center). Yarrington is reported to have allowed the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels to operate in his state without hindrance in return for bribes. 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 kidnapping and murder of the SEIDO agents resembles the type of actions of another infamous Mexican crime group, the Zetas. Please notify us by email that the article will be republished at, Abbott Wants to Deny Undocumented Kids a Public Education, Border Security Is a Financial Black Hole that Will Consume Us All, Two Executions, Many Questions about Mental Health, Innocence, Remembering a Social Justice Lawyer Extraordinaire. CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas Gunmen with the Los Zetas cartel butchered close to 20 victims over the weekend, three of those victims were Texas residents who had been visiting relatives. WebOn behalf of Los Zetas." It is disheartening to hear that the founding fathers of a criminal organization like Los Zetas received training from US military officers. 330 76 comments Best Add a Comment ComfortableSoup5 2 yr. ago Her work has been featured in various national and international media outlets, including the Guardian, PBS, NPR and Marie Claire. Based in the western state of Jalisco, CJNG was founded by Nemesio Oseguera Ramos, whose ongoing leadership has placed him on Mexican and American most wanted lists, both of which offer millions of dollars for information. Get our latest in-depth reporting straight to your inbox. A red Blackberry phone belonging to De Leon was examined by computer forensics experts with Homeland Security Investigations. Brutality and inhumanity are the most noticeable traits of drug cartels all over the world, but Los Zetas has taken them to a new high. Rival gang MS-13 may have the most terrifying tattoos (see featured image), but Los Zetas wins the prize for violence. Violent drug gangs are waging a bloody war in the tourist haven of Quintana Roo - visited by millions of British and American holidaymakers each year. The defendant in this case is Mariano Millan-Vasquez, known to everyone as "Chano." Based in northwest Mexico's Sinaloa state, the Sinaloa Cartel is widely considered to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, according to Insight Crime. Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty. Piedras Negras, in the state of Coahuila, has a reputation as a hotbed for drug smuggling and violence. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, William R. Long dubbed the Cali cartel as "Colombia's Gentlemen Cocaine Traffickers." Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Human smugglers often use buses to transport migrants north to the Texas-Mexico border. [6] Mexican drug cartels are currently operating in 47 countries around the world, including Colombia, Guatemala, and others. When prosecutors asked De Leon if "Chano" was in the courtroom, the witness stood up and scanned the courtroom for close to three minutes, before pointing at Millan-Vasquez. 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. Worse than any horror film: Inside a Los Zetas cartel kitchen Led by the infamous Pablo Escobar, the Medellin cartel is said to have killed thousands of people, including three Colombian presidential candidates, many judges and over 1,000 police officers (via Biography). Follow @NewsHourWorld Yet the Cali cartel was still a powerful drug cartel that used violence if it had to, especially during its conflict with the Medellin cartel, which took many lives on both sides. In August 2010, the Mexican military stumbled upon the bodies of 72 people bound and executed. ", The Gulf cartel's control in the northeast state of Tamaulipas has seen many violent incidents, both against rivals and each other. The way in which the killers carried By that point, however, more bodies had surfaced. If you support this mission, we need your help. The rest of the video is a gruesome 40 seconds of cold-blooded murder, which caused international controversy recently when it was posted on Facebook. Relatives of the victims have begun a Go Fund Me campaign in order to take the bodies of Garcia and her two daughters Galilea and Mariana to South Texas for burial. Lazcano died in a shootout with the Mexican Navy. According to court testimony, from 2007 through 2011, Chavarria oversaw the shipment of enormous quantities of cocaine between Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, and Eagle Pass, Texas on behalf of the Los Zetas Cartel, in which he was a high-ranking member. He made a mistake in his greedbelieving he was invincible and untouchable. Months after the casino attack, 49 decapitated bodies were dumped on a Monterrey highway (via Insight Crime/The World). He frequently supervised killing experiments wherein new recruits were ordered to kill people with a machete or sledgehammer. Unlike some of its fragmenting rivals, CJNG's power is forecast to grow despite government pressure on their front companies and bank accounts. Cartel: Los Zetas In 2015, Los Zetas leader Morales was arrested in Mexico City. This essay provides an overview of those incidents of torture and beheadings linked to the Mexican cartels and their mercenary and gang affiliates taking place both within Mexico and the United States. The video shows four women on their knees in a field, their hands tied behind their backs. SAN ANTONIO -- A father whose son went missing in 2011 took the stand Wednesday in the federal trial of an alleged war commander for Los Zetas drug cartel. Mail Online Videos: Top News & Viral Videos, Clips & Footage Originally a security detail for the Sinaloa cartel, BLO seceded in 2008 and a fierce conflict ensued. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author. "The first time [I was kidnapped], they took me with a group of about seven people. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. De Leon said that during his captivity, he witnessed Zetas commanders dismember people while they were still alive and throw the body parts into a flaming barrel. The cartel leaders that subsequently took over after Moraless arrest were unable to stay in power for long, either being arrested or gunned down by a rival gang. It was the second time in eight months that the town of 57,000 in the border state of Tamaulipas had been the site of mass graves. Groups like Los Zetas have also been known to operate abroad, buying raw materials from Argentina and operating in Asian countries like Malaysia. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. First it was people with money, then it was anyone. Men were beaten, hacked apart, flung from windows, hanged, and decapitated. The gunmen used a large hammer to break down the door before storming the house shooting indiscriminately at the women and children inside. Jeffrey Morris is a researcher and freelance writer with a passion for history and rarities. The military gunned four Zetas members down, before capturing nine others and finding five abducted passengers inside the ranch. It operates in more than half of the countrys 32 states. 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. These are the top ten distressing facts about Los Zetas you dont want to know. Then, on April 21, 2011, police arrested San Fernandos police chief and got a little closer to the truth. 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. In 2010, Los Zetas established itself on its own terms, terrorizing the country with torture, beheadings and massacres (via Irish Times/Britannica). 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. Arson investigation underway after cars catch fire at west Houston apartment complex, Mother of 15-year-old shot at a house party wants someone held accountable, Houston forecast: Grab your jacket as you head to the rodeo, it's a cool and breezy Friday, Damage reported throughout North Texas area during severe weather.
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