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U.S. officials say Zetas have killed in Texas
The Herald (Mexico) ^ | February 20, 2005 | wire services

Posted on 02/21/2005 3:29:27 AM PST by ovrtaxt

U.S. officials say Zetas have killed in Texas

Investigators say the feared band of ex-military elite forces are operating in Texas and other parts of the United States.

Wire services
February 20, 2005

A team of rogue Mexican commandos blamed for dozens of killings along the U.S.-Mexico border has carried out at least three drug-related slayings in Dallas, a sign that the group is extending its deadly operations into U.S. cities, two U.S. law enforcement officials say.

The men are known as the Zetas, former members of the Mexican army who defected to Mexico's so-called Gulf drug cartel in the late 1990s.

"These guys run like a military," said Arturo A. Fontes, an FBI special investigator for border violence based in Laredo, in south Texas. "They have their hands in everything and they have eyes and ears everywhere. I've seen how they work, and they're good at what they do. They're an impressive bunch of ruthless criminals." Dallas and federal officials said that since late 2003 eight to 10 members of the Zetas have been operating in north Texas, maintaining a "shadowy existence" and sometimes hiring Texas criminal gangs, including the Mexican Mafia and Texas Syndicate, for contract killings. The Texas Syndicate is a prison gang that authorities blame for several murders statewide.

The Zetas' activities in North Texas were described in interviews with two U.S. federal law enforcement agents, two former Drug Enforcement Administration officials, a former Dallas undercover narcotics officer and two undercover informants.

"We're aware of the Zetas' threat to U.S. cities, and we consider it a growing threat," said Johnny Santana, a criminal investigator for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Office of the Inspector General. "We're conducting investigations into several cases statewide to establish evidence. We still don't have those links yet, but the telltale signs are there, and they point to the Zetas." The Zetas' presence in Dallas represents a sharp departure from standard practice for Mexican cartels, which traditionally have kept a low profile on U.S. soil and have sought to avoid confrontations with U.S. law enforcement.

The Zetas, who are accused off carrying out killings and acting as drug couriers for the cartel, are regarded by U.S. law enforcement officials as expert assassins who are especially worrisome because of their elite military training and penchant for using AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles.

"The Zetas are bold, ruthless and won't think twice about pulling the trigger on a cop or anyone else who gets in their way," said the former Dallas narcotics officer, who asked not to be identified.

"And they like to take care of business themselves or, when forced to, hire their own assassin." Gil Cerda, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department narcotics division, said he had personally not heard of the group and could not comment.



RISK DOWNPLAYED

Mexican authorities have downplayed the threat posed by the Zetas, saying that a major government crackdown has left the group leaderless and on the run.

José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the country's deputy attorney general for organized crime, suggested that many of the crimes attributed to the group may have been committed by outsiders emulating the group's violent tactics. "There are many Zetas wannabes," he said.

Still, Fontes of the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement officials said the former commandos are both a potent threat and are bolder and more ambitious than their predecessors.

They are extending their reach and violence beyond the Nuevo Laredo-to-Matamoros border area into Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, where they blend into burgeoning Mexican immigrant communities, state and federal officials said.

The group may have ventured as far as Nashville, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga., the officials said.

"These guys are anything but wannabes," said Fontes. "They're the real thing, and they're a threat to law enforcement officers on both sides of the border." Dallas and federal law enforcement officials have linked murders and drug violence in Dallas during the past 18 months to cocaine and marijuana trafficking in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, a base of operations for the Zetas. Dallas and federal investigators have blamed at least three Dallas killings on the Zetas, and some officials said that more than a dozen violent incidents can be attributed to the group.

Federal and Dallas authorities have blamed the following incidents on the Zetas: At 1:20 a.m. on Dec. 5, a gunman stepped out of a red sports car with a semi-automatic weapon and opened fire on three suspected drug traffickers as they played pool in the open garage of a home in the 5100 block of Mimi Court in Oak Cliff. Christian Alejandro Meza, 26, alias Juan Antonio Ortega, a parolee from Wichita, Kan., who was wanted on weapons charges, died of multiple wounds to the abdomen. Two other men were severely wounded and are being held on drug charges.

Law enforcement officials said the men were attacked because they allegedly worked for a rival drug lord, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who escaped from the maximumsecurity Puente Grande prison in Jalisco state in January 2001, hidden in a laundry truck.



RIVAL GANG FIGHT

Guzmán is reputed to be a leader of the Juárez cartel, a rival of the Zetas' employer, the Gulf cartel, and is wanted in the United States, said Fontes, the FBI agent.

Dallas police seized 45 kilos of cocaine said to have been smuggled from Monterrey with a street value of US2.5 million and about 300,000 in cash from the Oak Cliff home and one next to it.

"The hit was a message to Chapo Guzmán, and the killer is believed to have been a Zetas member," said the former Dallas narcotics officer. "The gunman was very meticulous, didn't shoot a lot because he didn't have to." The case is under investigation, and the gunman remains at large.

On Sept. 28, police found the bodies of Mathew Frank Geisler and Brandon Gallegos, both 19 and from Laredo, in a burning 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe in a field near the corner of Morrell Avenue and Sargent Road, in the Cadillac Heights area of Oak Cliff. Both men had been shot, and the case probably involved drugs, according to police accounts.

A federal investigator said that "without a doubt" both incidents were carried out by the Zetas.

"We're seeing an alarming number of incidents involving the same type of violence that's become all too common in Mexico, right here in Dallas," said the former Dallas narcotics officer. "We're seeing executionstyle murders, burned bodies and outright mayhem. It's like the battles being waged in Mexico for turf have reached Dallas."



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Mexico; News/Current Events; US: Arizona; US: California; US: New Mexico; US: Texas; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: aliens; border; dallas; dhs; drugcartel; drugwar; gangs; illegals; immigration; mexicanarmy; mexico; security; texas; wodlist; zetas

1 posted on 02/21/2005 3:29:28 AM PST by ovrtaxt
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To: ovrtaxt

What are we going to do about it? Wait until some innocent bystander is killed by an illegal alien? No, that's already happened in spades. Call Fox and complain? Invade Mexico? Cut off the remittances? That last suggestion might bear fruit.


2 posted on 02/21/2005 3:33:52 AM PST by hershey
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To: ovrtaxt

Mexico is a terrible country and many of its most terrible people are seeping across the border. Mexicans are forcing honest Americans out of the construction trades and the elites loves it. The elites on both sides of the border


3 posted on 02/21/2005 3:34:03 AM PST by dennisw (Seeing as how this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world .........)
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To: ovrtaxt

The serf class and peasant class of Mexico is being driven into the United States by the racist white European ruling families of Mexico. And Jorge Bush is just fine with that.


4 posted on 02/21/2005 3:36:49 AM PST by dennisw (Seeing as how this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world .........)
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To: dennisw

OK, lets all recite the Solution again--

"Regime Change for Mexico."

but the sentiments of over 90% of Americans fall on deaf ears....


5 posted on 02/21/2005 4:01:19 AM PST by ovrtaxt (McClellan: Do away with daily press briefings! Come straight to the New Media!)
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To: ovrtaxt

They are only doing jobs thast Americans won't take.


6 posted on 02/21/2005 5:28:58 AM PST by satan
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To: satan

"They are only doing jobs thast Americans won't take."

The is US doesn't have any indigenous Mafia types?


7 posted on 02/21/2005 6:04:04 AM PST by Smartaleck (Tom Delay TX: (Dems have no plan, no agenda, no solutions.))
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To: dennisw
Mexico is a terrible country and many of its most terrible people are seeping across the border.

Mexico is not a terrible country. Guatemala is a terrible country, Honduras is a terrible country, Paraguay...

Mexico is a country whose ruling class sees dumping their poor on the US and periodically crushing their middle class as their way to stay on the top of the heap. The people who come here illegally fall into two broad categories; good people who are trying to get away from a system that is stacked against them and are willing to do anything to get out, and people who see the US as the big piñata and are here to take advantage of a system that lets them take advantage of it.

Either way, they broke our laws. The problem is, there are between 8 and 11 million of them and there is no way that we are going to deport the equivalent of greater LA. (No matter how much some of us would like to do exactly that.) The solution has to start with closing our borders - north and south. Until we do that we will achieve nothing.

Our current situation is roughly equivalent to that which the Roman empire faced in the fourth century. We either abandon the Limes and wait for the mob to sack our cities or we handle the situation better than they did.

8 posted on 02/21/2005 6:16:59 AM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (San Francisco - See It Before God Smites It.)
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To: InABunkerUnderSF
Mexico is a country whose ruling class sees dumping their poor on the US and periodically crushing their middle class as their way to stay on the top of the heap. The people who come here illegally fall into two broad categories; good people who are trying to get away from a system that is stacked against them and are willing to do anything to get out, and people who see the US as the big piñata and are here to take advantage of a system that lets them take advantage of it.

I've been saying the same for a while. Their job is to get here illegally and our job is to keep them out, that should be our job but we treat it like a joke. There are wretched poor across this planet and Mexico are far from the worst off.

Shackled to an ungrateful corpse

9 posted on 02/21/2005 6:22:18 AM PST by dennisw (Seeing as how this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world .........)
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To: ovrtaxt; Calpernia; Velveeta; DAVEY CROCKETT; JesseJane; TexasCowboy; ElephantinTexas; ...

Ping


10 posted on 02/21/2005 6:47:54 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (The enemy within, will be found in the "Communist Manifesto 1963", you are living it today.)
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To: nw_arizona_granny
What we must do is stop differentiating between terrorism and drug gangs. It's all part and parcel of the same thing.

The Mexican drug gangs themselves are terrorists, but they also work together with MidEastern terrorists in a symbiotic relationship. Some Muslim extremists are also gang members and vice versa.

The solution to both problems is to shut the borders, and free trade be damned!

11 posted on 02/21/2005 7:24:29 AM PST by TexasCowboy (Texan by birth, citizen of Jesusland by the Grace of God)
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To: hershey
"Cut off the remittances?"

Hey, that was my idea!
<grin>

If we cut off the remittances, 90% of the wetbacks would pack up and go home overnight.

And you know what?
Somehow, we'd manage!

12 posted on 02/21/2005 7:28:27 AM PST by Redbob
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To: hershey

Invading Mexico has a positive ring to it!


13 posted on 02/21/2005 8:26:18 AM PST by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
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To: mhking; mafree
The first thing that popped up in my mind when I read the title was Zeta Phi Beta.


14 posted on 02/21/2005 8:35:12 AM PST by rdb3 (The wife asked how I slept last night. I said, "How do I know? I was asleep!")
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To: Lurker; Viet-Boat-Rider; Little Ray; tom paine 2; Squantos; Monkey Face; ShuShu; VeniVidiVici; ...

" The Zetas, who are accused off carrying out killings and acting as drug couriers for the cartel, are regarded by U.S. law enforcement officials as expert assassins who are especially worrisome because of their elite military training and penchant for using AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles.

"The Zetas are bold, ruthless and won't think twice about pulling the trigger on a cop or anyone else who gets in their way," said the former Dallas narcotics officer, who asked not to be identified."


15 posted on 02/21/2005 9:05:14 AM PST by JustAnotherSavage ("We are all sinners. But jerks revel in their sins." PJ O'Rourke)
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To: rdb3
The first thing that popped up in my mind when I read the title was Zeta Phi Beta.

Or, as I'm sure you referred to them during college (as did we all), "Zoo Phi Boogas"...

16 posted on 02/21/2005 9:06:47 AM PST by mhking (Do not mess with dragons, for thou art crunchy & good with ketchup...)
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To: mhking
Or, as I'm sure you referred to them during college (as did we all), "Zoo Phi Boogas"...


We called them Zeta Fat Beta. They were some KFC eatin' sistas!

I had never heard of this Mexican drug gang. I'm in Dallas, so I'm paying attention now.


17 posted on 02/21/2005 9:16:36 AM PST by rdb3 (The wife asked how I slept last night. I said, "How do I know? I was asleep!")
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To: ovrtaxt

Just repeat after me: "Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." (including Gambino family values).


18 posted on 02/21/2005 9:32:17 AM PST by Bogolyubski
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To: Redbob

"If we cut off the remittances, 90% of the wetbacks would pack up and go home overnight."

No they wouldn't and how are you going to cut off remittances anyway?


19 posted on 02/21/2005 10:37:59 AM PST by monday
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To: dennisw

"Mexico is a terrible country and many of its most terrible people are seeping across the border"

It hasn't always been that way. It used to be a safe place full of friendly people. The war on drugs has driven a major market underground and provides criminals with huge amounts of money to buy police, judges, military, etc.etc.

It is driving the corruption and violence in Mexico. If it continues, Mexico will become just like Columbia, complete with Marxist rebels and a 100% corrupt government. Eventually, the US will fall too.


20 posted on 02/21/2005 10:45:11 AM PST by monday
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