Drug cartels put hit squads in Laredo

[SaraJ]

You think Illegals are a problem? You ain’t seen nothing’ yet! These guys, sicarios, are responsible for the blood bath here.

And the Zetas are almost unstoppable, they cross borders (US, Mexico, South America, you name it!) any time they want to and no one has been able to stopped them. The article is in error, though. The Zetas are not just Mexican soldiers, they are also mercenaries from San Salvador. The first ones were trained by the US in Special Forces work. When the war ended they started working for the drug dealers.

Recently the State Police were chasing some sicarios on the highway. The bad guys stopped and the police stopped about 300 yards back. The bad guys threw 3 fragmentary grenades at them and followed up with 3 bazooka rounds.

You ready for that??

Drug cartels put hit squads in Laredo


By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

LAREDO, Texas - The scrawny young man at the defense table was only 17, and had only a peach-fuzz mustache in his mugshot. But authorities say he was already a seasoned assassin in the U.S. for some of Mexico's drug lords.
The trial last month of American citizen Rosalio "Bart" Reta, combined with the case against a co-defendant and interviews with law enforcement officials, has cast a spotlight on a new danger along the border.
Mexican drug lords locked in a bloody fight for control of a pipeline that runs from Mexico to Dallas and up through middle America have brazenly stationed hit squads and reconnaissance teams in Laredo.
In the past two years, rival cartels have killed at least seven people in Laredo, including a victim stalked and killed near his job site and a man gunned down in the parking lot of a popular restaurant, U.S. authorities say. Nearly all the victims were mixed up in the drug trade themselves.
"That river does not stop these people," said Webb County Sheriff's Maj. Doyle Holdridge, who for the past 30 years has been working drug cases along the Rio Grande, which separates Laredo from its Mexican sister city, Nuevo Laredo. The cities have a combined population of half a million.
Over the past few years, the Mexican Gulf Cartel and its rival Sinaloa Cartel have carried out a terrifying bloodbath in Nuevo Laredo, where the traffickers have a saying: "Plata o plomo" — "Silver or lead." So far, the worst of the violence has been confined to Mexico.
"Our mission is to make sure it doesn't cross over," said Jesse Guillen, a Laredo prosecutor who obtained guilty pleas from Reta and another hitman for the Gulf Cartel earlier this year. "Is it under control? Let's see."
Unlike many other drug-related killings, the Laredo slayings often involve careful planning, explicit orders and surveillance of law enforcement officers, Guillen said. And arrests aren't easy: In most cases, the killers flee back across the border.
Also, the traditional taboos against involving family members and other civilians have disappeared.
"These days, if they have a problem, they kill it," Holdridge said. "If they have to hose down a car full of five people, they'll do it."
Gone also is the grudging respect once accorded U.S. law enforcement. Holdridge said he and his wife have occasionally been followed by suspected cartel members as they drive around town. In fact, Reta had the make, model and plates of a law officer's personal car, Guillen said.
Reta, nicknamed for the cartoon character Bart Simpson, admitted being part of a hit squad that was ordered in January 2006 to kill a man who was dating a drug lord's girlfriend. The squad of three Americans mistakenly killed the target's stepbrother, 27-year-old Noe Flores, instead, prosecutors say.
The hit squad's members — all Americans — lived in the U.S., awaiting orders from the drug lords. Investigators said they are unsure whether other hit squads are living in this country.
Reta's co-defendant Gabriel Cardona, 20, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Although he probably would have gotten a shorter sentence if he had been convicted at a trial, "he was scared to death" of his bosses, Guillen said.
Reta chose to go to trial, but as the testimony started to reveal details of the cartel's organization and tactics, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years. A defense attorney and others involved in the case received threats.
Reta, who was only 16 when Flores was killed, still faces charges in the killing of another Laredo man, gunned down outside a restaurant, also allegedly on the orders of the Gulf Cartel.
Reta told investigators that the Zetas, former Mexican soldiers now working as Gulf Cartel enforcers, trained him in marksmanship and grenade-throwing at a boot camp in Mexico, Guillen said. Reta's right arm bears a tattoo of "Santa Muerte," the pseudo patron saint of drug traffickers whose image frequently shows up on candles or statues with drug loads.
Reta told a U.S. investigator he participated in about 30 cartel-ordered killings in Mexico, starting when he was 13, and sought extradition to the United States for the Laredo murders after he was arrested in connection with a grenade explosion that killed four people at a nightclub in Monterrey, Mexico.
Reta, Cardona and other hitmen were paid $500 a week, according to Laredo police. When a job was done, they could get a bonus of $10,000 and two kilos of cocaine, police said in court documents. For the Flores killing, Reta and Cardona got $500 each. (The intended victim was eventually killed.)
The third alleged member of the hit squad made bail after his arrest and fled to Mexico before trial. Warrants have also been issued for the alleged middleman in the hit and the cartel's reputed boss in Nuevo Laredo, but both men are believed to be in Mexico.
The cartels have studied U.S. law enforcement procedures and know how to stymie officers.
Holdridge said the cartels sometimes send out "suicide loads" — smaller piles of marijuana or cash that traffickers know will get caught by local law enforcement. Such busts tie up officers with paperwork for hours, giving traffickers time to drive a bigger load through unnoticed, Holdridge said.
In recent months, the violence around Laredo and Nuevo Laredo has quieted down, and no other hit squads have been discovered.
But "it's like shark's teeth," Guillen said. "You pull one out and another one grows in."

“Plata ò Plomo” : Take the bribe or take a bullet.

[lewisipso]

They'd have to give me the bullet.

[SaraJ]

They'd have to give me the bullet.

Not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes they threaten the family.

[CTR man]

I wonder if these guys have ties to MS-13. Don't they come from El Salvador? Where's a LAW (military speak for Light Anti-tank Weapon) when it's needed.

[JLK]

in my trunk

[Tuff]

I hate to say it, but this has been happening for years, and I mean a LONG time...... I have a few friends that have grown up in and around Laredo and if somebody gets misthreaded with a cartel they simply get kidnapped..and never found...

Just last year a couple of gentlemen were on a friends hunting ranch and got the surprise of their lives..... 40-50 armed men and trucks showed up at the ranch and took everything, and after few days they found my friends wondering naked in the desert badly beat ... needless to say somebody was denied a business opportunity and this was reprisal for it..since then they have chose to move their entire hunting operation NORTH of the border.....

[ManImBored]

This should fuel Term's fire LOL

[SaraJ]

I wonder if these guys have ties to MS-13. Don't they come from El Salvador? Where's a LAW (military speak for Light Anti-tank Weapon) when it's needed.

Yes, they have ties with MS-13. They are the sicarios. They are from El Salvador, Los Angeles and San Diego. Los Zetas are also from El Salvador, they're the military group of the drug dealers.

[lewisipso]

Not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes they threaten the family.

I hope I didn't sound unconcerned. My statement is just my own personal view and would be my own way. It is never a good thing when innocent persons, especially family are used against officers. Your point is well taken.

[BEB]

Targeting family and/or friends to influence someone is a loathsome thing, IMNTBHO. Effective, no doubt about that.

Please delete or move if this is an officer safety issue.

Do you have to work under your given name? How much leeway is given in your department? Do you have to use a given name, family name, both or neither?

On second thought, don't respond unless this is moved to a less public area.

[SaraJ]

Whoa!!! Wait a minute there!! This post has very little to do with officer safety!! What it's about is a big bad thing that might just jump the border and land right in your town. It's already been reported in Larado and Phoenix, AZ. It's just that the article was written from a law enforcement standpoint, that's all. No, no, no. This is a problem for the whole community. These people aren't too careful when they kill someone. The hit in the town north of me resulted in over 100 empty shells in the street. Bullets from AK-47s do not discriminate. They'll strike anyone. When these people "invite" dealers to talk to the boss, sometimes the dealers return home and sometimes--as happened over the weekend--they wind up dead. Their tortured, throat slit and a bullet between the eyes bodies dumped in a field or on the sidewalk or left in stolen SUVs in huge puddles of blood and gore. Sicarios aren't too neat. Any kid or young person walking along could stumble over one. No, please! I don't know diddle about officer safety. In fact, the guys here could use some help in that area. I'm shocked that the state and federal boys who are armed with AK-47s and G-3s are STILL getting killed. Sorry if you got the wrong impression.

[conalabu]

Thank you for the post, Sara. This is most definitely a problem that everyone should be looking at. To me, especially in this situation, the more people are made aware of the seriousness of the issue, the more help I am likely to get when dealing with this type of situation.

[SaraJ]

You may need all the help you can get. 5 officers quite at the end of Aug. 2 just didn't show up for work. Tuesday another officer was targeted by cop stalkers. Driving in the right lane of a 3 lane highway, car approached on the left. The bad guy shoved an AK-47 out the window and put 8 rounds into the officer's patrol car, 1 into the front tire and 1 into the rear tire. The officer was able to get away. No sign of the stalkers. All the PD is scared, especially the guys on duty at night. What can they do? They're like sheep to the slaughter.

[bmf95b]

Damn....

[MacLean]

If they wanna play special forces, we should introduce them to special forces.

Yeah yeah, I know the rules as well or better than most.

Still, a group like ODD or Dev could have some fun with these people.

As for "are we ready for this?" By and large, no.

[janego10]

its not easy being a cop in South Texas

[MonsterMash]

Fuckin assholes. Sad thing is......the US *could* close the border if it wanted to.

[SaraJ]

I agree, Special Forces is an option and a good one. If they want to play war then give them someone well-trained to play with. However, some of these guys have been trained by ex-Special Forces soldiers. While the average Sicario isn't overly burdened with brains, the bosses are pretty savy. They're able to change tactics quickly when they see that something isn't working or needs to be improved. For instance; in Dec. 2006 they assassenated the head of a special narcotics task force here. They then parked the Nissan X-Terre that was used in the crime in the garage of a safe house. When the poilice raided the house in Feb. of 2007 they found the vehicle. It cost 4 guys some heavy jail time (something like life). So, now the drill is; steal a car, pick up arms , do the hit, rendezvous with second car and driver at prearranged location, abandon the car, the guns and any clothing that was worn, proceed to safe house. To date NO Sicario has been apprehended.

And, yes, the US could close the border. But I'm not so sure even that would stop them. This week a Seta was arrested in the State of Tabasco in the south of Mexico. He was the boss of the "plaza" at Matamoros. (A "plaza" is like a clearing house, or port of entry and exit for any and all illegal traffic.) When they searched the car he was riding in they found a shoebox full of fake IDs. Drivers licenses, credit cards, etc. Some were for Mexico and some were for the US. You don't need 20 of these guys. They recruit from the neighborhoods of the town they're in.

" "That river does not stop these people," said Webb County Sheriff's Maj. Doyle Holdridge, who for the past 30 years has been working drug cases along the Rio Grande, which separates Laredo from its Mexican sister city, Nuevo Laredo."

[MonsterMash]

Turn the tide. If we started killing some of these fuckers in return, they wouldn't be so quick to jump the border. Thats why we need a wall along the border.