Los Zetas (pronounced [los ˈsetas], Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels.[17][18][19][20][21] They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder.[22] While primarily concerned with drug trafficking, the organization also ran profitable sex and gun rackets.[23] Los Zetas also operated through protection rackets, assassinations, extortion, kidnappings and other illegal activities.[24] The organization was based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, directly across the border from Laredo, Texas.[25] The origins of Los Zetas date back to the late 1990s, when commandos of the Mexican Army deserted their ranks and began working as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel.[22][26] In February 2010, Los Zetas broke away and formed their own criminal organization, rivalling the Gulf Cartel.[27][28]
They were at one point Mexico's largest and most expansive drug cartel in terms of geographical presence, overtaking their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel, in physical territory.[29] However, since the mid/late 2010s Los Zetas has become fragmented and seen its influence diminish, with most factions absorbed by their regional opposition or eliminated.[30] As of March 2016, Grupo Bravo (Bravo Group), Los Talibanes (The Talibans), and Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas) have formed an alliance with the Gulf Cartel against Cártel del Noreste (Cartel of the Northeast).[31] Another splinter group was formed also named Sangre Nueva Zeta (New Blood Zeta), allying themselves with the Jalisco Cartel as an armed wing. In March 2019, Texas Republican congressman Chip Roy introduced a bill that would list the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas, Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Gulf Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations. Former United States President Donald Trump had also expressed interest in designating cartels as terrorist organizations.[32] However such plans were halted at the request of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.[33]
Los Zetas was named after its first commander, Arturo Guzmán Decena, whose Federal Judicial Police radio code was "Z1",[34] a code given to high-ranking officers.[35][36][37] The radio code for commanding Federal Judicial Police officers in Mexico was "Y" and those officers are nicknamed "Yankees", while Federal Judicial Police in charge of a city was codenamed "Z"; thus they were nicknamed as "Zetas", the Spanish word for the letter.[citation needed]
After Osiel Cárdenas Guillén took control of the Gulf Cartel in 1997, he found himself in a violent turf war. To keep his organization and leadership from rival drug cartels and from the Mexican Army, Cárdenas sought out Decena, a retired army lieutenant.[38][39][40] Decena lured more than thirty deserters from the elite Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) to become his personal bodyguards, and later, as his mercenary wing.[41] These deserters were enticed with salaries much higher than what they were paid by the military.[42] Some of these former GAFE members reportedly received training in commando and urban warfare from the Israeli and U.S. Special Forces.[43]
Once Guillén consolidated his power, he expanded the responsibilities of Los Zetas, which began to organize kidnappings,[44] protection rackets,[45] extortion,[46] securing cocaine supply and trafficking routes known as plazas (zones) and executing its foes, often with extreme violence.[35][47] However, in November 2002, Decena was killed in a military action at a restaurant in Matamoros, Tamaulipas,[48] allowing Heriberto Lazcano ("Z3") to take control of the group.[49] In response to the rising power of the Gulf Cartel, the rival Sinaloa Cartel[50] established Los Negros, an enforcer group similar to Los Zetas but not as complex or successful.[51] Upon the arrest of Guillén in March 2003 and his extradition in 2007, the Zetas took a more active leadership role within the Gulf Cartel and their influence grew within the organization.[35][52]
The Zetas' membership ranges from corrupt federal, state, and local police officers, and former U.S. Army personnel,[53][54][55] to ex-Kaibiles, the special forces of the Guatemalan military.[56] Over time, many of the Zetas' original thirty-one members have been killed or arrested; a number of younger men have filled the vacuum, but the group as currently extant remains far from the efficiency of their paramilitary origins.[57]
Los Zetas was partially responsible for a qualitative increase in the brutality of the violence seen during the Modern Mexican Drug Wars. Unlike other cartels, the Zetas did not buy alliances so much as terrorize their enemies. Because the cartel was quite new at the time, it competed with more established cartels by using extreme violence and cruelty as a form of psychological warfare. They tortured victims, strung up bodies, and slaughtered indiscriminately. They preferred to take military-style control of territory, holding it through sheer force and exploiting its criminal opportunities. Although their military training was diluted over time, their brutality was not. Rival cartels struggling against the Zetas began to adopt some of their tactics, further ramping up violence in the country.[4] As other organized crime groups subsequently copied the Zetas' brutal and superfluous methods to ensure they could survive, this resulted in the violence in Mexico escalating to much higher levels and to new forms. Some of these newer tortures and hyper-violent execution styles included practices such as flaying and castration as well as public displays of the victims.[58][4]
Following the capture and extradition of Cárdenas, Los Zetas became so powerful that they outnumbered and outclassed the Gulf Cartel in revenue, membership, and influence by 2010.[59] As a result of this imbalance, the Cartel tried to curtail their own enforcers' influence and ended up instigating a civil war.[60] In addition, the Cartel, through its narco-banners in Matamoros and Reynosa, accused Los Zetas of expanding their operations to murder, theft, extortion, kidnapping – actions that the Cartel allegedly disagreed with.[61] Los Zetas countered by posting their own banners throughout Tamaulipas, noting that they had carried out executions and kidnappings under orders of the Cartel and they were originally created for that sole purpose.[62] In addition, Los Zetas charged that the Cartel was scapegoating them for the murders of innocent civilians.[62]
Reports vary as to who triggered the formal split and why. Some sources claim that Guillén, brother of Cárdenas and one of the successors of the Gulf Cartel, was addicted to gambling, sex, and drugs, leading Los Zetas to perceive his leadership as a threat to the organization.[63] Other reports mention, however, that the divide occurred due to a disagreement on who would take on the leadership of the cartel after the extradition of Cárdenas. The candidates from the Cartel were Guillén and Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez, while Los Zetas wanted to hand the leadership to their own head, Lazcano.[64] The Cartel also reportedly began looking to form a truce with the rival Sinaloa Cartel, which Los Zetas did not want to recognize, allegedly preferring an alliance with the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.[65][66] Samuel Flores Borrego, a lieutenant of the Cartel, killed Zetas lieutenant Sergio Peña Mendoza, alias "El Concorde 3", due to a disagreement over the drug corridor of Reynosa, whom both protected.[67] Los Zetas demanded that the Cartel hand over the killer, but they refused.[68]
When the hostilities began, the Cartel joined forces with its former rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel and La Familia Michoacana, aiming to take out Los Zetas.[69][70] Consequently, Los Zetas allied with the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, and the Tijuana Cartel.[71][72]
In early 2010, Miguel Treviño Morales, the former second-in-command of Los Zetas, had reportedly taken the leadership of the Zetas and displaced Lazcano.[73][74] Lazcano was initially content to have Morales in his ranks, but reportedly gave Morales too much power and underestimated his violent nature.[75] Morales' active leadership gained him the loyalty and respect of many in Los Zetas, leading many to eventually stop paying their tributes to Lazcano.[76] Los Zetas are inherently an unstable organized crime group with a long history of brutal violence, and with the possibility of more if the infighting continues and if they fight on without a central command.[77]
Los Zetas have also carried out multiple massacres and attacks on civilians and rival cartels, such as:
In addition, sources reveal that Los Zetas may also be responsible for:
By 2011, only 10 of the original 34 Zetas remained fugitives,[90] and to this day most of them have either been killed or captured by the Mexican law enforcement and military forces.[91][92][93]
As of 2012, Los Zetas had control over 11 states in Mexico, making it the drug cartel with the largest territory in the country.[94] Their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel, had lost some territories to Los Zetas, and went down from 23 states in dominion to 16.[95]
By the beginning of 2012, Mexico's government escalated its offensive against the Zetas with the announcement that five new military bases will be installed in the group's primary areas of operation.[96]
On 9 October 2012, the Mexican Navy confirmed that Los Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano had been killed in a firefight with Mexican marines in a state on the border with Texas.[97]
In a May 2013 interview with the International Crisis Group, researcher Daniel Haering stated, "The old networks were disrupted by the Zetas, and now the Zetas have disintegrated into Zetillas. They are splinter groups ('grupúsculos'), not big operators."[98]
On 14 July 2013, it was reported that the Mexican Marine Corps captured the Zetas leader Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, also known as "Z-40" in Anáhuac, Nuevo León, near the border of Tamaulipas state.[99] The authorities allege that he was succeeded by Omar Treviño Morales (alias Z-42), his brother.[100]
On 12 October 2013, Mexican authorities captured alleged top Zetas operative Gerardo Jaramillo, alias "El Yanqui".[101] His arrest ultimately resulted in the discovery and seizure of a large Zetas weapons cache and supply stash, including "assault rifles, several grenade launchers, magazines, 2,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres, bullet-proof vests and balaclavas".[98]
On 9 May 2014, one of the founding members, Galindo Mellado Cruz, and four other armed men were killed in a shootout after Mexican security forces raided Cruz's hideout in the city of Reynosa.[102]
On 3 March 2015, Mexican security forces arrested the last known leader of the remaining Zetas structure, Omar Treviño Morales (alias "Z-42") in a suburb in Monterrey, Nuevo León.[103]
On 23 March 2015, Ramiro Pérez Moreno (alias "El Rana"), a potential successor of "Z-42" was captured, along with 4 other men, carrying 6 kilos of cocaine and marijuana, rifles and one hand grenade.[104]
On 9 February 2018, Mexican authorities arrested the new leader José María Guízar Valencia alias "Z-43" in Mexico City in Roma neighbourhood. US offered $5m reward for his capture, he is responsible for importing thousands of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine to the US every year and murdered an untold number of Guatemalan civilians during the systematic takeover of the Guatemalan border region.[105]
On 9 April 2019,[106] José Roberto Stolberg Becerra, also known as "La Barbie", was arrested in Jalisco.[107] He was reported to have been the leader of the cartel's Los Zetas la Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas) faction.[106][107]
On 26 May 2019, an operative for Los Zetas in the Veracruz municipalities of Las Choapas and Agua Dulce was arrested by the Mexican Navy.[108]
In early July 2019, Los Zetas leaders Jorge Antonio "El Yorch" Gloria Palacios, the second-in-command of the Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) faction of Los Zetas, and Hugo "El Ganso" Sanchez Garcia, who served as head of Los Zetas in San Fernando, were detained by Mexican authorities.[109][110]
In January 2020, Los Zetas regional leader José Carmen N., also known as "El Comandante Reyes", was arrested in Oaxaca.[111] He was believed to be in charge of the gang's operations in 12 municipalities in Veracruz, including Acayucan, Minatitlán and Coatzacoalcos, known as the state's most violent towns.[111] The same month, Verónica Hernández Giadáns, the Attorney General of Veracruz, admitted that her cousin Guadalupe "La Jefa" Hernández Hervis was in fact chief of operations for Los Zetas and also a close association of former Los Zetas leader Hernán "El Comandante H" Martínez Zavaleta, who was arrested in 2017.[112]
In March 2020, senior Los Zetas operative Hugo Alejandro Salcido Cisneros, also known as "El Porras" or "Comandante Pinpon", was killed in a gun battle with police in Nuevo Laredo.[113] Salcido Cisneros was the leader of the "Tropa del Infierno", a group of hitmen under the direction of the Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) fraction of Los Zetas.[113] Several other Tropa del Infierno gunmen was injured in the clashes as well.[113]
In May 2020, Moisés Escamilla, a leader of the "Old School Zetas" died in prison after contracting COVID-19.[114]
The drug violence and political corruption that has plagued Tamaulipas, the home state of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, has fueled fears of it becoming a "failed state" and a haven for drug traffickers and criminals.[115] The massacre of 72 migrants and the discovery of mass graves in San Fernando,[116][117] the assassination of the gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantú,[118] the increasing violence between cartels, and the state's inability to ensure safety have led some analysts to conclude that "neither the regional nor federal government have control over the territory of Tamaulipas."[119]
Although drug-related violence had existed long before the Mexican Drug War, it often happened in low-profile levels, with the government "looking the other way" in exchange for bribes while drug traffickers went about their business – as long as there was no violence.[120] During the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Mexican government would conduct customary arrests and allow cartel business to continue.[121]
After the PRI lost power to the National Action Party (PAN) in the 2000 presidential election, all the "agreements" between the previous government and the cartels were lost along with the pax mafiosa.[122][123] Tamaulipas was no exception; according to PAN politician Santiago Creel, the PRI in Tamaulipas had been protecting the Gulf-Zeta organization for years.[124][125] The PAN has claimed that government elections in Tamaulipas are likely to encounter an "organized crime influence".[126]
In addition, there are formal charges that three former governors of Tamaulipas – Manuel Cavazos Lerma (1993–1999), Tomás Yarrington (1999–2005), and Eugenio Hernández Flores (2005–2010) – have had close ties with the Gulf-Zeta organization.[127] On 30 January 2012, the Attorney General of Mexico issued a communiqué ordering the governors and their families to remain in the country as they are being investigated for possible collaboration with cartels.[128][129] In 2012, Yarrington was further accused of money laundering for Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.[130][131]
In Tampico, Mayor Óscar Pérez Inguanzo was arrested on 12 November 2011 due to his "improper exercise of public functions and forgery" of certain documents.[132] In mid-2010, both Flores and the mayor of Reynosa, Óscar Luebbert Gutiérrez – both members of the PRI – were criticized for claiming that there were no armed confrontations in Tamaulipas and that the widespread violence was "only a rumor".[133] Months later, Flores finally acknowledged that several parts of Tamaulipas were "being overrun by organized crime violence".[134] Gutiérrez later recognized the work of the federal troops and acknowledged that his city was experiencing "an escalation in violence".[135]
On 25 March 2010, forty inmates escaped from a federal prison in the city of Matamoros.