El Pelochas Metro 28

Written for Borderland Beat by Otis B Fly-Wheel

Subject Matter: El Pelochas, Metro 28, Luis Alberto Blanco Flores
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Otis B Fly-Wheel
Recent events on the Reynosa-Rio Bravo border have plunged the citizens of Reynosa into a living hell of insecurity, gun battles and fear. The antagonists creating this unrest are Los Metros with their base in Rio Bravo and Reynosa, and Los Escorpiones from Matamoros with Alfredo Cardenas and Commandante Panillo, M 100.

Antecedents

It seems that of all the cartels currently operating, those in the north east have been constantly infighting since the fall of their respective leaders. I'm talking about Los Zetas and the Cartel del Golfo, and the death of Heribierto Lazcano Lazcano, El Lazca, for Los Zetas and Mario Ramirez Trevino, El Pelon or X 20 of the Cartel del Golfo after his capture and subsequent imprisonment.



Like any force, their effectiveness is only as good as the strategic decisions made by their leaders, and the two ways of achieving control, those being leading by example and the installation of fear. Certainly El Lazca could inspire both in his men, while X20 certainly could do the same. The same cannot be said of those that followed, and the fragmentation that follows when Lieutenants and Captains do not respect their leaders, allied to ambition, has been the generator of the almost constant violence in Tamaulipas and to a lesser extent in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.

Both cartels had in the recent past, criminally talented leaders. Juan Garcia Abrego for the CdG and Arturo Guzman Decena for Los Zetas.

Arguably, the men above led their cartels when they were at their most effective. Guzman Decena put all of the instruments in place for Los Zetas to become the leading cartel after their split from the Cartel del Golfo. As a GAFE Officer he understood holistically what was required to run an effective campaign of domination of territory, and managed to create a drugs superhighway that stretched from the borders of Guatemala to the border with the United States, effectively running the entire length of Mexico.

Garcia Abrego, was not a military man, and having inherited a border plazas, had a different view on how to run things, in the traditional Mafioso vein. Relying more on greasing palms and a penchant for logistics, than the high tech operation put in place by Decena, with their own encrypted radio networks with camouflaged repeater towers throughout their territory.

Those that followed had insight but not the talent, the lack of decision making savvy leading to both men's downfall. El Lazca was at the time of his defection from the Mexican armed services, only a Corporal in the Mexican Infantry, and was not of the same calibre as Guzman Decena, while El Mata Amigos, Cardenas Guillen made a decision to unleash an animal that would eventually turn on him, Los Zetas.

One can look at Los Zetas after the death of Guzman Decena and see the decline of Los Zetas start from that time. The operational structure of Los Zetas went from a highly professional mostly ex-military cadre, to the recruitment of 15 year old girls as their territory grew and the military recruits were not enough in numbers to man that territory. While all recruits received Los Zeta training, you can only hone the tools that you have to start with, and it was Los Zetas recruitment policy that started their decline.

El Mata Amigos, made consciously bad decisions almost for the entire length of his leadership of the Cartel del Golfo. From the recruitment of Los Zetas, which gave them a short term advantage, but in the long term turned into a desmadre, to the decision to turn on those closest to him, which led to lack of respect from large parts of the organization below him. Today Los Zetas are just another cartel competing with all the others, with no tactical advantage over the other cartels.

After the fall of these men, we saw several changes of leadership within the CdG before Mario Pelon X20 took the reigns. He reigned in the dissatisfied factions within the CdG and made them pull together with a common purpose. His arrest was the signal for all hell to break loose within the CdG

Within Los Zetas, after the death of El Lazca, the Trevino brothers took charge and they had always believed that installation of fear would always lead to effective leadership. Comparing the two, Guzman Decena and El Z-40 were polar opposites, with visionary leadership a trait of one, and sociopathy a trait of the other.

A journey starts with a single step

Now we have set the scene for what came before, we can start to look at Metro 28's decent in the murky world of the Cartel del Golfo. His story starts for us on the 23rd of July of 2010 in Brownsville, Texas when he was employed as a halcone for the Cdg and was arrested for illegal entry into the United States. A month later he attended Federal Court with his Lawyer Rick Canales.

Inside the court room were his mother and wife. He broke down in tears in front of Judge Ronald Morgan. He was declared guilty of entering the US illegally and after paying a hefty fine he returned to Tamaulipas. He resumed his work as halcone for the CdG and again returned illegally to the US and one again was arrested by US authorities for illegal entry.

He was subsequently deported on an international flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Federal District, Mexico City. He was charged by the PGR for crimes against health, but the evidence was not sufficient and a Tamaulipas Judge freed him.

He was then set to work for Juan Carrizales "El 98 Carrizales", who in turn was under the command of Juan Manuel Loza Salinas, El Commandante Torro, leader of Los Metros. El 98 was a regional commander, and under him M28 was promoted to Sicario, under the then Rio Bravo plaza boss "El Diablo". As with many, indeed like El Chapo, those who work in every facet of the cartel business become much more effective at command, but not in every circumstance.

M28 carried out his duties as sicario and became a trusted man within the Rio Bravo plaza, gaining more responsibility for guarding the plaza leadership. M28 honed his battle skills with constant gun battles against both the authorities and Los Zetas whose incursions from Ciudad Camargo and Miguel Aleman, meant Los Metros were calling for reinforcements from the Rio Bravo plaza.

Rio Bravo plaza were also at the coal face in regards of attacks coming from the Matamoros factions of Cartel del Golfo, whose activities were allegedly at odds with Los Metros. With Los Metros accusing Matamoros of terrorizing the population with extortion and piso of local businessmen instead of concentrating on the business of narco trafficking.

One can probably take these criticisms with a pinch of salt or indeed a whole barrel of salt, as all cartels at times claim to be saintly and only carry out their drug trafficking as though they were Jesus Malverde himself. While most sicarios are paid in product, if they end up snorting all their payment, they will carry out a bit of piso to supplement their incomes, and provide a bit of cash for their other pursuits. Those within the cartel who are caught doing it to the wrong people are dealt with and not heard of again, and those outside the cartel are normally killed in a horrific manner and left on public display.

Defending the boss

On the 17th of February of 2017, authorities decided to mount an operation to capture El Commandante Torro, who had been the de facto leader of Los Metros of the Cartel del Golfo. Los Metros decided to defend their leader and lost nine sicarios as a result.

Among the reported dead were M35, a close and trusted ally of Commandante Torro, and El Pelochas according to the reporter Demis Maeker. As with a lot of " dead twice " narcos, he had in fact not been killed, and was a victim or beneficiary, depending on how you look at it, of mistaken identity.

To remember his part in the defence of his boss, El Commandante Torro at Km 9, he ordered the band La Adictiva to record a song about this incident.

" I'm going to tell you the 100% true story of what happened in Reynosa, at Kilometer 9, the marines and the gauchos wanted to grab the boss, and with strategy we went out in line to confront them, prepare the people!"

Not long after the incident at Kilometer 9, the Mexican Federal forces killed El Commandante Torro. As usual with such a big cartel, with no clear lineage to leadership, the CdG descended into an orgy of violence to decide who would be the next leader. The main protagonists in this struggle were the nephew of El Commandante Torro, Alberto Salinas, El Betillo, and Jesus Garcia, El Guero Jessi, who was one of the most trusted confidantes of El Commandante Torro.

At this point in time, Petronillo Moreno Flores, El Commandante Panilo, and El Pelochas were on the side of El Betillo. El Guero Jessi had taken refuge in Nuevo Leon in one of the safe houses belonging to Commandante Panilo. Ambition can be a cruel mistress and realizing what was up for grabs, Comandante Panilo threw his hat into the ring for the leadership, and abandoned his support for El Guero Jessi.

Commandante Panilo

This left El Betillo with the support only of El Pelochas, and between them they came to the decision that El Guero Jessi had to be dealt with and that Panilo should be sidelined. They went forward with their plan and at a meeting, they executed El Guero Jessi.

The second part of their plan was to discredit Commandante Panilo, they circulated the rumours that Panilo had robbed money off the widow of Commandante Torro, needless to say this was seen as a no-no by the rest of Los Metros.

The out and out battle following the death of El Jessi was reported on by myself in an article of 5th May of this year.

Disputes between Cdg

This dispute carried on into August and September

The dispute led to El Pelochas sending out a message to Matamoros faction of CdG

"Since the CdG commanders took the reins, together and in common agreement, we began a restructuring, dedicating ourselves to the removal of extortion to the working population, and attacking the kidnappers that plague our border so that at the moment that type of crime here has almost disappeared.

We do not want to be saints of devotion but we are dedicated to drug trafficking and have enjoyed some tranquility but the excessive ambition of Sr Alfredo Cardenas, who at all costs intends to seize our territories.

I want to ask you to take precautions and if not necessary do not go out to the streets at night as we expect more actions from the sicarios of Alfredo Cardenas, those who have to now come to cause misfortune to our families while they dedicate themselves to leave their patrol vehicles full of weapons.

But as the ambition of Alfredo Cardenas is unreasonable, we think this week they will continue their attacks in both social networks and our territory, so I ask extreme caution while I try to solve this situation.

I do not want to act as "mother", but I want our territories tranquil and I will not allow criminals to continue the slaughter of innocent people or young men that are not armed.

All these killings are ordered by Alfredo Cardenas, and passed down to their people of Matamoros, I hope they think about what awaits them on our border, and I hope this week everything will be resolved. ATTE: Commander M28".

I doubt very much that the issue will be resolved, and El Pelochas will probably go the way of his predecessors. He is intuitive through long periods of having to defend Los Metros borders. It would be good if he is sincere about his resolve to leave the citizens in peace and concentrate on drug trafficking, and to that end if he became overall leader of the CdG and all its factions, Tamaulipas might return to a period of relative peace, given that Los Zetas are more interested in attacking each other in the north eastern border states than they are attacking the CdG.

For further reading about CdG you should visit the sites below. Most of the mainstream networks do not report on Tamaulipas in light of attacks on them by CdG and Los Zetas.

Valor por Tamaulipas
Epoca Violenta
La Silla Roja