Cartel enforcers operate in Dallas
Trained by U.S. Army, commandos oversee drug, alien smuggling
09:51 PM CDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
Elements of the Zetas, feared enforcers for the notorious Gulf drug cartel, have been operating in the Dallas area for at least two years, according to the Justice Department.
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.
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According to FBI officials, the Zetas want to consolidate their control of the smuggling route along I-35 in Texas from Laredo to Dallas for the Gulf cartel. 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 also specialize in settling scores with rival drug-trafficking organizations in Dallas and other cities, according to U.S. investigators and a Justice Department memo.
"Texas law enforcement officials report that the Zetas have been active in the Dallas area since 2003," said the March 15 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."
In addition to Dallas, the Zetas are spreading fast from the Texas border region into Houston and San Antonio and into other states including California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, according to the Justice Department bulletin. The agency said it had also learned that the group has begun establishing its own trafficking routes into the United States and apparently 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. Mexican officials have long said there were 31 original Zetas, but one U.S. investigator put the number of original members at 68. The investigator, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said the higher number comes from a Mexican intelligence report. Experts disagree on the number of original Zetas who are still alive and free.
Over the years, the original Zetas who went to work for the Gulf cartel have recruited new members, and they are now believed to have more than 200 members operating in the Mexican region bordering Texas, a U.S law enforcement official said. Among them are other Mexican army deserters and federal police officers. There are also some 500 additional support members and second-generation enforcers known as Zetitas, or little Zetas.
Officials on both sides of the border know of 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.
It remains unclear whether those who participated in the Mimi Court shooting were original Zetas or Zetitas, but a federal investigator said it made little difference.
"To us, a Zeta is a Zeta," said Arturo Fontes, an FBI agent in Laredo. "We don't separate them. Both are synonymous with the Gulf drug cartel. Both are just as deadly."
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