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Do Colombian Rebels or Drug Lords make guiso como esto?? (Warning - very macabre!!!)

LAREDO, Texas (CNN) -- Rosalio Reta sits at a table inside a Laredo Police Department interrogation room. A detective, sitting across the table, asks him how it all started.

Gabriel Cardona, who shows his tattooed eyelids, worked as a hit man for a Mexican cartel.

1 of 2 Reta, in Spanish street slang, describes his initiation as an assassin, at the age of 13, for the Mexican Gulf Cartel, one of the country's two major drug gangs.

"I thought I was Superman. I loved doing it, killing that first person," Reta says on the videotape obtained by CNN. "They tried to take the gun away, but it was like taking candy from kid."

Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a three-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors. The third was arrested by Mexican authorities and stabbed to death in prison there three days later.

In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border.

CNN has also obtained detailed court records as well as several hours of police interrogation videos. The detective sitting across the table from Reta and Cardona in those sessions is Robert Garcia. He's a veteran of the Laredo Police Department and one of the few officers who has questioned the young men.

"One thing you wonder all the time: What made them this way?" Garcia told CNN. "They were just kids themselves, waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox, waiting around for the order to be given."

Over a nearly one-year period starting in June 2005, the border town of Laredo, Texas, saw a string of seven murders. At first glance, the violence looked like isolated, gangland-style killings. But investigators started suspecting something more sinister.

Then Noe Flores was gunned down in a clear case of mistaken identity. Investigators found a fingerprint on a cigarette box inside the suspected shooter's get-away car. That clue unraveled the chilling reality and led police to arrest Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta.

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Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.

"There are sleeper cells in the U.S.," said Detective Garcia. "They're here, they're here in the United States."

The cases against Cardona and Reta -- both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder -- shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called "Los Zetas," a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They're considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. "Los Zetas" liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

As the teens became more immersed in the cartel lifestyle, their appearance changed. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Reta's face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of "Santa Muerte," the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.

"These organizations, these cartels, they function like a Fortune 500 company," Webb County, Texas, prosecutor Uriel Druker said. "We have to remember that the United States is the market they are trying to get to."

In Cardona's interrogation tape, there are clues that "Los Zetas" are reaching deeper and deeper into the United States. Cardona is asked, "Where else are the Zetas?" And Cardona responds, "I've heard in Dallas and Houston."

And that's why the cartel recruited these young Americans. Cardona and Reta could move freely and easily back and forth across the border with Mexico.

Just hours before they were arrested, federal authorities taped a phone conversation between them in which Cardona brags about killing 14-year-old Inez Villareal and his cousin, a Cardona rival.

Cardona laughs as he describes torturing the two boys and dumping their bodies in large metal drums filled with diesel fuel. He says he made "guiso," or stew, with their bodies.

As the call ends, Cardona says, "There are three left to kill, there are three left."

By nine inch nails on Mar 13, 2009, 05:32 in Politics & the war.

Rikito says on Mar 13, 2009, 15:27:

WTF does this have to do with Colombia? Does talking about drugs and shit make you cool or seem knowledgeable? Not to me. To me it is a matter of who cares. There are so many other things about Colombia that have far more value than drug discussions. It is a worn out discussion. There are 30 threads on PBH talking about it and probably countless comments of basic nothingness. Yes it is here in Colombia and it is a problem, but it is also a problem in the U.S. where in two northwestern States it is the #1 cash crop. Why not talk more about the Colombian people in different areas and how they are different, talk about restaurants, places to travel to. Colombia is an amazing Eco site on this planet, but talk about it? "No man, we gotta talk about drugs man, like it is the best thing out there man." The people, the culture, the politics, FARC's never-ending march towards stupidity, the tolerance that is allowed, the freedoms. I would love to see a discussion of Colombia's path towards independence and travel to some of the famous battle sites and see the monuments.

The islands...seldom discussed other than San Andres which is an OK island tourist place. There are several other islands that one can visit, where are they? Am I allowed on the Island? Is Ginger on any of them? What about the rivers? Which ones can we travel on without being the entree for the night? Why can't we arrange some kind of PBH convention or trip to somewhere? How bout a discovery venture to find Elmo? No, we have to talk about drugs man.

It is no accident that this post has been up since 5:30 this morning and no one has commented on it. Why? Because it has no meaning in a normal person’s life. Do you think the Mexican thing is going to come to Colombia? Do you think the Mexican thing will last...it won't. The Mexican government at some point in time will grow a pair and do something about it. For me the entire drug culture and its subordinate discussions are those of truly ignorant, people who have nothing in their brain except a bunch of poop!

It is a worn out topic and should be removed, but I am sure there are some in here who will tear me down and try to make this into a social or political thing. Or make a personal attack like I don't know what I am talking about. It isn't. Its crap written through ignorance and the inability to write about anything else.

I'm out...you can take your shot at me now, but you will be one hand clapping.

Cuidaté

...and so it goes

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Lauren says on Mar 13, 2009, 15:42:

wasn't there a guy in Milwaukee who used to stock his refrigerator with human parts? Sick people can be found anywhere.

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billyb says on Mar 14, 2009, 11:41:

"wasn't there a guy in Milwaukee who used to stock his refrigerator with human parts?"

Yes, I think he also posted here on PBH.

"All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I never go there" Unkown (at least to me) wise man.

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dwmte7 says on Mar 18, 2009, 11:22:

did those 'parts' keep well? did anyone ask....or do only ignorant people ask if human body parts spoil when frozen? what does this have to do with colombia....i mean mexican human body parts...or were they mexican or colombian...or was it that the guy who had them in his fridge came from colombia...no he was on pbh? what? am i being ignorant...or was that some other thread...

how did we get from drug lords to ignorance to body parts...tell me billy after you tell me about the coffee house. i know, it has nothing to do with colombia, BUT, coffee comes from colombia....AND, there's human body parts in colombia....AND, there's drug lords there, too.....as well as in mexico, where there are mexicans. i think.

patriarch

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Lauren says on Mar 24, 2009, 09:49:

I am 100% with you that the article has nothing to do with Colombia. I mentioned the "Butcher of Milwaukee" (Jeffrey Dahmer) just as an example that even in America, "all-American" boys can do macabre things.

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poco says on Mar 24, 2009, 10:07:

Quote: waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox,
==============================
Those violent evil video games,, PAY HEED to this heinous example. What do kids think? Blowing up the flood,, splatter them in messy globs of flesh,, using a BFG on the devils spawn as they attempt to take over the earth,, sneaking up on soldiers and cutting their throat,, using high powered sniper rifles,, probably 50 Cal.. to annihilate the enemy,, throwing thug slugs with ferocity,, geeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,,, becoming an assassin is actually,, fun,, as long as no one gets killed, unless of course they deserve it.

Colombian Chickens are crowing about the new President of the U.S. who will assure that From each according to their ability to each according to their need.

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Rocco81 says on Mar 24, 2009, 19:21:

Yeah the Border in Mexico is completely fehked up..but I agree it has no place on here really.

But let's not make it worse by pointing to some maniac in Millwaukee..the border culture is very macabre Lauren and it happens quite frequently now so yeah its very real, very common and like the wild wild west down there.

Should be in a Mexican forum.

Sic semper tyrannis

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