U.S. prosecutors accused two leaders of one of Mexico’s most violent groups, Los Zetas, of leading the bloodthirsty Northeast Cartel that succeeded him from prison, where they have remained for more than a decade, according to an indictment made public Wednesday in Washington. .
According to the document, Miguel Treviño Morales, arrested in 2013, and his brother Omar Treviño Morales, in 2015 – nicknamed Z-40 and Z-42 respectively – “renamed Los Zetas as the Northeast Cartel” (CDN) and since then prison “continued to control the cartel and installed several relatives” to operate from outside.
The Treviño Morales are accused by US prosecutors of participating in a criminal organization, drug trafficking conspiracy, firearms crimes and money laundering conspiracy. They are accused of criminal activities in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States.
“The CDN remains the successor cartel to the Zetas and continues the criminal drug trafficking activities previously carried out by the Zetas,” the document added.
Unsupervised meetings in prison
The publication of the indictment represents a strong questioning of the Mexican federal authorities who, according to what US prosecutors have stated, have not been able to keep these drug traffickers away from criminal activities even while in prison, where inmates can often celebrate a large number of meetings with little surveillance, which would allow them to pass messages abroad.
Furthermore, the problems of self-governance and corruption in Mexican prisons are not something new, as different official reports have recognized on numerous occasions.
The state prison of Piedras Negras, in the northern state of Coahuila and just six kilometers from the border with the United States, served at least between 2010 and 2011 as an operations center for Los Zetas whose facilities were used to modify vehicles and make uniforms, as well as to lock up kidnapped people and dissolve the bodies of their victims in diesel, according to a 2017 investigation by a public university.
And the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – who is now serving a life sentence in the United States – escaped twice from two Mexican maximum security prisons, in 2001 and 2015.
The Zetas emerged as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas, the state in the northeastern corner of Mexico, bordering Texas.
They later split from the group, spreading terror throughout the country and were the main objective of the war against the cartels launched by President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).
They were the authors of some of the most shocking massacres in the recent history of Mexico, such as the massive murders of migrants in Tamaulipas more than a decade ago or the execution of dozens of inhabitants of Allende, a town in Coahuila around 2011.
Cry for justice
The bastion of the renowned Northeast Cartel is currently in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, the place “where criminal groups attack the Armed Forces the most, both the Army and, where appropriate, the National Guard,” the president acknowledged this week. , Claudia Sheinbaum.
“For decades, these individuals have controlled one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, committing and directing the commission of horrific atrocities against our neighbors, the people of Mexico, and also in the United States,” said U.S. District Attorney West Texas, Jaime Esparza, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.
“Nothing is more important than bringing dangerous individuals like these to justice. “We look forward to working with the government of Mexico to bring these brutal drug trafficking leaders to justice for the numerous crimes they have committed,” he noted.
The indictment was announced on the same day that the 38-year prison sentence was announced for Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico, who was found guilty by a jury in New York of receiving millions of dollars in bribes for protect the Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly fighting.
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