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. The handful of passengers lucky enough to be rescued confirmed their captors intended to recruit them. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Drug cartels influencing politics paints a picture of total disaster. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. Reyna never heard back from the cartel, so he said that he contacted the Mexican government. 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. Somewhere near San Fernando, which lies on the interstate to Matamoros, the buses were hijacked, and convoys of armed men snatched passengers. Outlets must also tag the Observer in all social media posts. Authorities expect more violence to ensue in the coming days. The gunmen injured 4 others in the attack. Countries militaries are dedicated to defense from external aggression and the protection of peoples lives and properties. 2021 The Texas Observer. 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). With that grim context in mind, here are the most dangerous cartels to ever exist. 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). Los Zetas is indeed the worst Mexican drug cartel in history. Rodriguez said that when he asked a commander about Reyna's son who disappeared, the commander said for him to stop asking about it, because they just finished "cooking him". Authorities had been notified of missing passengers from Highway 101 on May 24 and May 29, with soldiers following a tip that led them to the La Joya ranch a few miles off the road. Britannicawriter Richard J. Samuels defines cartels as, "An illicit consortium of independent organizations formed to limit competition and control the production and distribution of illegal drugs," adding that cartels are, "extremely well-organized, well-financed, efficient, and ruthless." Cartel: Los Zetas People began to disappear, said San Fernando priest Ramon Ruiz. In August 2010, Zetas executed 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, which was followed by 2011 attacks in San Fernando and a Monterrey casino, killing a combined 245 people. In this pivotal year, Zetas occupied territory in 405 Mexican municipalities, which Insight Crime found was more than double that of their biggest rivals. In the human smuggling business, migrants pay $100 to $200 upfront, then pay the rest once theyve reached the United States. 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. A former Mexican drug cartel kingpin who dismembered a six-year-old girl with an axe in front of her parents has been sentenced to seven consecutive life terms in a US prison. Families across Mexico reported that relatives had disappeared after boarding passenger buses bound for the Texas-Mexico border. They picked us up and told us we had to work for someone, for Los Zetas, De Leon said in court. 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. Like Los Zetas, their bitter rivals, CJNG is known for terrible violence. The two cartels enjoyed over a decade of business until the late 1990s, when the Gulf cartel had become self-sufficient. The 34-year-old, known as "Chano", was a regional boss in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras. Los Zetass status as the largest drug cartel in Mexico carries additional implications. It was found in Webb County, near the border city of Laredo. President Felipe Caldern deployed the military against Mexicos cartels in 2007, and despite $1.6 billion in U.S. support, 35,000 civilians were now dead by 2011, with thousands missing. The kidnapping and murder of the SEIDO agents resembles the type of actions of another infamous Mexican crime group, the Zetas. This radio communication technology has given them a edge over Mexican law enforcement agencies for years. Gradually, the BLO began to weaken in this battle of attrition, losing many members to jail or death. With all this being said, the power and brutality of the gang seem to be waning. The office's purpose was to collect debts from Escobar's extensive trafficking network. [6] Mexican drug cartels are currently operating in 47 countries around the world, including Colombia, Guatemala, and others. First it was people with money, then it was anyone. Whatever the motivations, the mass killings show just how little control the federal government exerts over Tamaulipas. 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. 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. The field was linked to the Los Zetas cartel. They recovered deleted material, which included death threats from the defendant and information regarding Zetas operations. He was told to contact someone in Los Zetas to see if they had information. Then, on April 21, 2011, police arrested San Fernandos police chief and got a little closer to the truth. The 2011 San Fernando Massacre was both disturbing and, tragically, far from a one-off occurrence. That's right the Wight bitch was the bad one and cut off heads with axes with her own hands. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. This is a unique and distressing fact about the deadly gang. WebThere is a popular consensus that Los Zetas is the most brutal and inhuman drug cartel in history. 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. He has been in detention since his arrest in Texas in 2015. WebThe Most Brutal Execution Methods Reportedly Used By Mexican Cartels Beheading By Chainsaw. So how does Morales, who came into power just last year after his predecessor was shot and killed by authorities and his Los Zetas fit into the underworld that is Mexican cartels? However, despite these smaller groups' threat to the Guerrero and Morelosstates, the Beltrn-Leyva Organization is merely a trace of its former self. The women have been identified as Lourdes Gregorio Garcia Amaya from Texas, Raymunda Amaya Contreras, Maria Del Rosario Carrizales Amaya, Griselda Carrizales Amaya and Maria Cirila Contreras Garcia. De Leon said that his mother sold her house for $20,000 to help him, and that the Zetas let him loose with the stipulation that he must pay $100,000 more in one week. 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. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, William R. Long dubbed the Cali cartel as "Colombia's Gentlemen Cocaine Traffickers." 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. Sadism was their brand. 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. Killed: Oct. 7, 2012 She specializes in reporting on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. Imagine how tragic it would be for such a respected and honored organization to become an evil one like Los Zetas. The traditional cartels buy off politicians, establish traffic routes for smuggling and make money. Put in pairs and given sledgehammers, they were forced to fight each other. Her work has been featured in various national and international media outlets, including the Guardian, PBS, NPR and Marie Claire. The criminal indictment claims that the former governor took bribes from drug cartels in exchange for official protection. After the group's 1985 murder of DEA agentEnrique Camarena, the US and Mexico closed in on the cartel, causing several leaders to disperse across Mexico, leaving El Chapo and his partnerHctor Luis Palma Salazar as the Sinaloa chiefs. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. To make matters worse, the gang is also into migrant smuggling. Tamaulipas Lieutenant Governor Morelos Jaime Canseco Gmez admitted police were still looking for another bus of passengers. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Attorney Jeff Blackburn, a crusader for the innocent, fought injustices across Texas in his improbable, utterly original, and often profane life. At least two jurors broke down in tears as they listened to Jorge De Leon Navarro describe how Los Zetas killed their prisoners. Human smugglers often use buses to transport migrants north to the Texas-Mexico border. WebOn behalf of Los Zetas." (Watch our piece Mexican Marines Kill Drug Lord Known as The Executioner.). At this juncture, it is safe and reasonable to conclude that Los Zetas is one of the biggest headaches of the American people. Since the war began, the fighting has resulted in daily kidnappings, shooting, drive by shootouts, beheadings, dismemberments and other gory executions. With their archenemy established, La Familia Michoacana set out to publicize themselves. The group was originally made up of 34 Mexican Special Forces soldiers. Much of the cartel's drugs trade depended on theLazaro Cardenas port, an asset that La Familia killed some 1,500 people to protect. During the late '70s and 1980s, the Sinaloa Cartel worked with the Medellin cartel, establishing lucrative cocaine routes to the United States that spanned land, sea and air. WebCartel Del Golfo interrogation 4 Zetas these bastards have admitted to raping women,killing women, killing kids. WebSoon after the murder, Guzman became known as Z-1, and would become the founder of Los Zetas, literally The Zs: an organization that began as an elite security detail and would evolve across 12 years to become one of Mexicos most powerful criminal organizations. In April 2019, CJNG killed 14 people in Minatitlan, a Zetas territory. In August 2017, the cartel kidnapped 17 people and kept them in a stash house in Nuevo Laredo. He frequently supervised killing experiments wherein new recruits were ordered to kill people with a machete or sledgehammer. // ]]>. However, in the late 1990s/early 2000s, a set of El Milenio lieutenants rebelled and created their own cartel. The military gunned four Zetas members down, before capturing nine others and finding five abducted passengers inside the ranch. Lazcano died in a shootout with the Mexican Navy. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); He made a mistake in his greedbelieving he was invincible and untouchable. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. WebAlso dumbass the bitch on the far right was white "la cholla" or something she was called and she is was brutal as fuck. 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. All Rights Reserved. Among the first deaths in the conflict was Edgar Guzman, El Chapo's son. Graphic from a 2011 NDIC national drug threat assessment. These types of brutal dealings by Los Zetas originally a bodyguard group for another cartel upset the status quo. WebOn behalf of Los Zetas." The macabre bloodsport was detailed in The Houston Chronicle. Jair Cabrera/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesTributes to the 2011 San Fernando Massacre. Inside The Brutal 1955 Murder Of 14-Year-Old Emmett Till That Galvanized The Civil Rights Movement, 101-Year-Old Woman Who Began Trapping Lobster Before The Great Depression Has No Plans To Retire, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Following the 2011 San Fernando Massacre, Federal Highway 101 was colloquially dubbed the highway of death or the devils road.. WebCIUDAD 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 With nearly all of the bodies lacking identification, authorities transported them to the Matamoros morgue for family members to hopefully identify. Aside from manufacturing illegal drugs and trafficking them, the gang is also into kidnapping and extortion. Some had been killed by sledgehammer. They were the victims of a brutal new evolution in Mexican cartel violence. 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. Some believe the victims were simply killed for refusing to join the cartel but, ultimately, San Fernando had become so violent that few journalists ever entered to investigate.