Indictment Reveals Cartel's Inner Workings

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) ― Nearly two years ago Mexican soldiers acting on what they said was an anonymous tip seized more than 11 tons of cocaine being unloaded by Gulf Cartel members at a warehouse near the eastern coastal city of Tampico.

At the time, Mexican media reported that it was the country's largest cocaine seizure to date.

But according to documents filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., last month in a case against 19 high-ranking members of the Gulf Cartel and its one-time enforcement arm the Zetas, authorities were monitoring phone conversations for months among the cartel members organizing that cocaine shipment from Colombia.

The bust was a big score for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's cartel crackdown and evidence of the cooperation between anti-drug efforts in the U.S. and Mexico.

A Justice Department spokesman reached before the start of the holiday weekend said those familiar with the case were not immediately available to comment.

Stephen Meiners, a Latin America analyst with Stratfor, a global intelligence company, said that the U.S. may have shared the intercepted phone call with Mexican authorities but not had the details of the specific location and time.

"It may have been one piece of the puzzle," combined with an anonymous tip to Mexican authorities, he said.

From June 2007 until the cocaine arrived in October, Miguel Trevino Morales, the Zetas' second in command, prepared for the massive load with Gulf Cartel members Samuel Flores Borrego and Juan Reyes Mejia Gonzalez, according to a superseding indictment filed June 9.

They spent months dealing with the logistics, including a search for warehouse space in the port city.

Then on Oct. 5, as described in a report from the Houston Chronicle, soldiers found a street blocked by armed men while others unloaded cocaine from a tractor trailer. The newspaper reported then-U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza saying, "Today marks another historic success for the Mexican government's counter-drug initiatives."

The supeseding indictment alleged that on Oct. 5, 2007, 10 of the named defendants "possessed and distributed approximately 11,700 kilograms of cocaine, which they intended to ship to the United States."

Calderon, speaking the day of the seizure in Ciudad Victoria, not far from Tampico, said, "We have redoubled the effort to enforce the law in Mexico."

The seizure infuriated the cartel, pushing Zeta member Alfredo Rangel Buendia to threaten death for any investors in the load who failed to pay their share within 72 hours, according to a phone conversation between two cartel members intercepted a week after the load was lost.

The indictment lays out the current Gulf Cartel hierarchy, explaining that the cartel and the Zetas continue to work together under the name "The Company." The first named defendant is Antonio Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen, brother of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who is awaiting trial in Houston.

But the 27-page document also includes pages of summarized intercepted phone calls — often in coded language — that provide context to the daily seizures of drugs and money at the Texas-Mexico border.

The bosses of the "plazas," or shipping corridors, controlled by the cartel, discussed how loads would be smuggled and the prices charged for cocaine and marijuana. The calls picked up plans to move drugs into Mexico from Colombia and Venezuela, their moves to the border and then across. Their routes cover border towns from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros and they spoke of some crossings as sure things.

They stay in touch with Nextel "push to talk" telephones and radios and meticulously track shipments, payments and members with a comprehensive database, according to the documents.

In May 2007, members arranged a $2 million bribe for Mexican government officials on an intercepted call. A month later, two others discussed the seizure of $2.7 million in drug proceeds by authorities in Texas and who the money belonged to.

Meiners, the Stratfor analyst, said the indictment provided interesting insight into the hierarchical relationships of the cartel and their individual responsibilities, but cautioned that the organization was in flux. Most of those named in the indictment remain at large, but several are in Mexican or U.S. custody.

About 18 months ago, there was a significant fracture in the Gulf Cartel-Zeta relationship as the Zetas began working more independently, Meiners said.

"When the Gulf (cartel) lost that exclusive contract with the Zetas, their power really decreased significantly," he said. Some have even speculated that the Gulf Cartel is working for the Zetas now, he said.

By truth or dare on Jul 2, 2009, 16:52 in Friendly Talkzone.

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