Juan Francisco Zapata Gallegos, suspected of being involved in a shootout that left two students dead at a university in Monterrey earlier this year, was captured on Friday, the Defense Secretariat said.The Zetas boss was arrested in Juarez, a city east of Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon state.
Soldiers acting on a tip went to Santa Fe, a subdivision in Juarez, around 8:00 a.m. Friday and found Zapata Gallegos at a house.
Army troops engaged a group of gunmen who tried to rescue Zapata Gallegos in a shootout and killed four of them, the Defense Secretariat said.
Gunmen then staged a series of street blockades in different cities in the Monterrey metropolitan area.
Zapata Gallegos succeeded the Luna brothers as the Zetas boss in the city.
Esteban Luna, who was captured in July, was the cartel’s boss in Monterrey and was behind several attacks on army troops and a U.S. consulate.
Luna took over the cartel’s operations in the industrial city after his brother, Hector Raul Luna, was arrested on June 9.
Los Zetas gunmen have been involved in a number of violent incidents that grabbed the headlines in Mexico recently.
Monterrey Institute of Technology students Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo were killed on March 19 when army troops entered the campus in pursuit of suspected Zetas gunmen during a wild chase through the streets of Monterrey, which is home to many of Mexico’s leading industrial companies.
The cartel’s hired guns were also behind the Oct. 12, 2008, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey.
No one was wounded when gunmen opened fire on the diplomatic facility.
Gunmen working for Los Zetas are also suspected of carrying out the massacre last week of 72 illegal immigrants at a ranch in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas.
Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, all members of an elite special operations unit, becoming the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel.
The Zetas broke with the Gulf cartel several months ago and the two criminal organizations are at war.
The armed group is now in the drug business on its own and controls several lucrative territories.
In February, giant banners heralding an alliance of the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia drug cartels against Los Zetas appeared in the northern city of Monterrey.
The cartels arrayed against Los Zetas blame the group’s involvement in kidnapping, armed robbery and extortion for discrediting “true drug traffickers” in the eyes of ordinary Mexicans inclined to tolerate the illicit trade as long as the gangs stuck to their own unwritten rule against harming innocents.
The gang war has especially affected Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.
Federal Police officers, meanwhile, arrested five La Familia Michoacana cartel members, including Jose Luis Garcia Vazquez, who is suspected of running the criminal organization’s operations in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan.
The 28-year-old Garcia Vazquez was arrested with his second-in-command, Rafael Mora, and three other cartel members, the Public Safety Secretariat said.
The suspects were arrested in an operation carried out on Aug. 22 following intelligence work targeting La Familia Michoacana, the secretariat said.
Garcia Vazquez was responsible for transporting and selling drugs, as well as for carrying out kidnappings, running extortion rackets and staging killings, officials said.
Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, according to experts, are the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Gulf, Juarez, Los Zetas and Beltran Leyva cartels, and La Familia Michoacana.
La Familia Michoacana, which operates in the western state of Michoacan, the southern state of Guerrero and the central state of Mexico, which surrounds the Federal District and forms part of the Mexico City metropolitan area, is considered the largest trafficker of synthetic drugs in Mexico.
looks like a regular street punk ... we need to realize these people are no longer "ex special forces" they re just pinche gangsters with no knowledge or respect for anything
ReplyDeleteOFF with his head!!!
ReplyDeleteThese animals only understand one justice..death so be it give it to them mexico begin executions
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first comment with regards to the "Zetas" no longer being specialized military trained commandos. That might have been the case early on in their inception, when the original 30 or so defected from the Mexican Army. Nowadays, the "Zetas" seemed to have morphed into a rather large street gang. This is evident by the fact arrests and executions of "Zeta" members are becoming more and more common. In addition, the ones, who have been captured and put on display appear to be very simple and unsophisticated. I'm not saying they aren't ruthless and extremely dangerous but to classify them a well organized paramilitary force is more myth then fact.
ReplyDeleteno wonder these past years the violence has gotten out of control. when you got street thugs like this guy calling shots theres goin to be pasandose de verga, not like the old days when there was respect.
ReplyDeleteman he looks all stupid probly with a fucken punch ill nock the fuck out of hime skinny basterd
ReplyDelete