Posts Tagged ‘Los Zetas’
Drug gangs “self-rule” Mexican prisons
SALTILLO, Mexico — The Zetas have the run of the prison in this industrial city 190 miles southwest of Lardeo, Texas, in what is known as autogobierno or self-rule. It dates back decades and forms of it exist in correctional facilities the world over.
But self-rule has become more of a problem in Mexico recently as prison populations swell with suspects detained in the ongoing crackdown on organized crime and the country’s drug cartels seize power behind bars.
The most recent prison report from the National Human Rights Commission shows self-rule on the rise. Drug cartels and their affiliated gangs are among those increasingly seizing control, say prison observers…
Security experts such as Vicente Sánchez, professor at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana, say self-rule exists mostly in state-level facilities. It took hold over the past four decades due to corruption, neglect and underfunding, he says, as prison mafias got involved in everything from peddling drugs to charging for the right to sleep on bunks.
“It’s an expression of the enormous corruption that there is in these kinds of public security fields,” he says.
David Ordaz, investigator at the National Criminal Sciences Institute, of the Attorney General’s Office says the cartels want to maintain their status and replicate power structures formed on the outside. Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, ombudsman for the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission in Ciudad Juarez, says that wardens have cut deals with prison mafias over the years – mafias now controlled by the cartels.
Self-rule, he says, “Means having total control over an inmate population,” along with “the ability to communicate with the outside without restrictions…”
Los Zetas…now operate stores and charge the inmates to use workshops. They even opened a strip joint that serves shots of whiskey under the Los Zetas brand.
Does anyone think the war on drug gangs will get anywhere when the rest of the corrupt infrastructure of Mexico remains untouched? Time in prison is spent resting up for the return to action.
Gang leader busted in Mexico – gangs block roads in retaliation
An alleged leader of one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent drug cartels has been arrested.
Hector Raul Luna Luna is said to be the head of the Los Zetas gang in the north-eastern city of Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city. Officials said on Wednesday he was captured by soldiers in a suburb of the city, which is a key industrial hub.
In response, gunmen hijacked cars and temporarily set up at least 10 roadblocks in Monterrey.
Convoys of armed men also attacked police stations, according to local reports…
The arrest brings to light the presence of organised crime in a city that used to be known as one of the safest in Latin America, the BBC’s Julian Miglierini in Monterrey reports…
Residents fear that the city – capital of Nuevo Leon state – has been drawn abruptly into the country’s drugs conflict, our correspondent adds.
And I add – where the frack are all the Mexican police and soldiers we hear about – patrolling the streets of Mexico?
These gangbangers steal cars, trucks and buses, block roads, fire on police stations with impunity. The corruption of Mexico is characterized by cowardice and complicity as much as anything else.
124 Mexico coppers arrested – tied to drug cartel
Public rally – probably paid for by Los Zetas
Mexican federal authorities have arrested 124 law enforcement officials in Hidalgo state on suspicion of being linked to the Zetas drug cartel, considered the nation’s most ruthless and dangerous crime syndicate.
Most of those arrested were municipal police officers, but there also were some high-level state and federal officials, according to the Mexico attorney general’s office…
Hidalgo is in central Mexico. Los Zetas was formed about 10 years ago by Mexican army commandos but now consists mainly of former local, state and federal police.
“The Zetas have obviously assumed the role of being the No. 1 organization responsible for the majority of the homicides, the narcotic-related homicides, the beheadings, the kidnappings, the extortions that take place in Mexico,” said Ralph Reyes, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s chief for Mexico and Central America.
Mexican society, Mexican politics has been corrupt for so long – you almost need a revolution to throw everyone out of office and hire a new army to oversee the country while everything starts up from scratch.
