Prison Director Threatened By Z40 Is Executed in Mexico City

"HEARST", "Enojon", & "Gary" for Borderland Beat 

A prison director was shot to death on the streets of Mexico City. It turns out that the prison director was threatened by imprisoned Zetas leader "Z40" shortly before he was killed.

Z40 has spent over a decade of his life behind bars, having been arrested back in 2013. He’s been able to navigate the prison system with ease - often manipulating it to his own benefit.

So it's worth considering, was Z40 behind the execution of the prison director? And how could the government prevent this from happening again?

The Execution of the Prison Director

Pablo Eduardo Casañas Calzada, age 51, worked as the Legal Director (sometimes described as the Director of the Federal Criminal Law Office) for a prison located in the state of Guanajuato. 

His family, however, lived in Mexico City so he regularly “traveled to Mexico City to visit his family during his days off.”

After two consecutive weeks of working at the prison, Casañas got a few days off. On the morning of July 29, 2023, Casañas left Guanajuato and he arrived at his home in Mexico City in the late afternoon. 

A few hours after he arrived, Casañas exited his home, intending to go with his wife to meet their children for dinner. Casañas entered his vehicle, a red Chevrolet Tracker SUV, which was parked on Moyahua Street, within the Iztapalapa district.

Shortly after settling into his vehicle, a lone gunman approached Casañas and fired multiple shots at him using a 9mm firearm. Casañas was struck at least four times in the attack, which took place at approximately 7:15 pm. The gunman quickly fled the immediate area. 

Los Angeles Press writes that “visual witnesses” notified the emergency phone line and police officers were quickly dispatched to check on the report. 

When officers arrived, they found Casañas lying dead in the driver’s seat of the SUV. The area was cordoned off by police and evidence was documented. 

MVS Noticias writes that Casañas’s wife told officers details about the gunman and attack. This may imply that his wife was walking to the car when the attack happened and she was one of the aforementioned “visual witnesses” to the murder of her husband.

Mexico City’s Attorney General’s Office is currently leading the investigation in the homicide.

Surveillance Footage Captures the Route of the Hitmen

The journalist Juan Carlos Alarcón, who writes for MVS Noticias, published exclusive information from inside the government investigation. Law enforcement is allegedly reviewing surveillance camera footage which depicts the getaway vehicle that the attacker ran to just minutes after he fired the deadly shots. 

Alarcón writes that an hour before the attack occurred, cameras captured a white Jeep SUV parking on Estrella Street. It parked just around the corner from the homicide location on Moyahua Street, as seen on the map below.  

Investigators currently believe that the attacker was working with an accomplice who stayed inside the white SUV. 

The MVS article featured 4 frames from surveillance camera footage, but the location labels on the footage were vague, if not, downright inaccurate.

Based on a careful comparison of the frames with Google Street View, Borderland Beat was able to pinpoint the exact location for each of the frames. 

The getaway vehicle appears to have headed west of the shooting location, likely taking one of the major highways which intersect the city.  

 

By 8:23 pm, roughly an hour after the shooting, it was seen driving near #5632 Desierto de los Leones.

At 8:36 pm, the vehicle was spotted to the east, near the intersection of Potrero de Tepito and Viejo a Mixcoac.

 

Based on the path of travel of the vehicle, it appears that the attacker and accomplice were heading to a location near the University City area.

His Job at the Prison

The federal prison where worked Casañas is known as Federal Prison #12. It is located in Ocampo, Guanajuato. It is considered to be a maximum security prison and it is sometimes called simply “CPS Guanajuato”. 

Casañas’s wife told authorities that her husband received threats from Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, alias “Z40”, the former leader of los Zetas. 

Z40 was arrested in July 2013 and he has been incarcerated in Mexican federal prison for over a decade now. 

He has been transferred between the various federal prisons in Mexico several times, as part of “a precautionary inmate rotation program.” 

The following is a summary of all prisons that Z40 is known to have spent time in: 

July 20, 2013 - December 19, 2013

Federal Prison #01 located in Altiplano, State of Mexico (Arrival -  Source) (Departure - Source) 

December 19, 2013 - February 10, 2015

Federal Prison #02 located in Puente Grande, Jalisco (Arrival -  Source) (Departure - Source) 

February 10, 2015 - March 27, 2017

Federal Prison #01 located in Altiplano, State of Mexico (Arrival -  Source) (Departure - Source) 

March 27, 2017 - July 19, 2018

Federal Prison #09 located in Juárez, Chihuahua (Arrival -  Source) (Departure - Source) 

July 19, 2018 - Unclear

Federal Prison #02 located in Puente Grande, Jalisco (Arrival -  Source) 

Unclear -  June 8 2020

Federal Prison #01 located in Altiplano, State of Mexico (Departure - Source) 

June 8 2020 - Unclear 

Federal Prison #11 located in Hermosillo, Sonora (Arrival -  Source) 

Unclear - June 30 2020

Federal Prison #02 located in Puente Grande, Jalisco  (Departure - Source) 

June 30 2020 - July 2021

Federal Prison #17 located in Buenavista Tomatlán, Michoacán  (Arrival - Source)  (Departure - Source) 

July 2021 - Current

Federal Prison #15 located in Villa Comaltitlán, Chiapas (Arrival - Source) 

You'll notice one prison that isn't among this list: Federal Prison #12 in Guanajuato - where Casañas worked. 

So how did Casañas end up angering Z40? There are two main possibilities: 

1. Casañas worked at a different federal prison before Federal Prison #12 and he drew the ire of Z40 through his work at the previous location. 

2. Casañas has a job which impacts prisons outside of the one he directly works at.

Regardless of how he got on Z40’s bad side, it's worth noting that Z40’s threats were the only “line of investigation” authorities mentioned as part of their investigation into the murder of Casañas.

Z40's Decade in Federal Prison

Let’s take a closer look at Z40’s history in prison to get a better idea of what kind of “cooperation” he may expect out of prison directors. 

In July 2015, Chapo escaped Altiplano through a tunnel constructed based on information in the prison’s architectural plans. This infamous prison break led to a crack down on other incarcerated inmates who were negotiating to buy the architectural plans of their respective prisons. 

According to De Primera Noticias, Z40 was one of these narcos. His lawyers were allegedly in the process of negotiating with officials on a price for the plans. Chapo’s escape, however, quickly ended any hope of future negotiations.

In October 2016, prison officials got word that Z40 and his brother Omar Trevino, alias "Z42", were planning to escape from Altiplano, the prison they were currently held in. According to De Primera Noticias, their plan involved creating an “artificial operation” (likely a prison riot) that distracted some of the guards while other corrupted guards opened the main door of the prison so the brothers could simply walk out. 

Later in 2016, in Altiplano prison, Z40 allegedly encountered CJNG figure José Bernabé Brizuela Meraz, alias "La Vaca" - another inmate in the facility. 

Z40 and La Vaca, evidently, did not get along and their friction led to Z40 threatening to kill Vaca. 

Vaca took this threat seriously, informing his relatives and subordinates about Z40's words. 

Luckily for La Vaca though, Z40 was transferred out of Altiplano in May 2017 - before he got a chance to kill La Vaca. But the threat still hung heavy over La Vaca - he knew that inmates loyal to Z40 would still have it out for him. 

When La Vaca heard that he was scheduled to be transferred to a prison in Tamaulipas, which was filled with Z40 loyalists, he believed it was a death sentence. 

La Vaca's followers attacked the vehicle transferring him to Tamaulipas in a failed attempt to free him. The deadly incident killed one police officer and injured four others. Although Vaca was not freed, his transfer to Tamaulipas was canceled and he remained safely at Altiplano. 

In December 2019, hitmen loyal to Z40 attempted to stop his prison transfer convoy as it traveled on highway 175 through Oaxaca. Their attack left a State Investigation Agency (AEI) captain dead but failed to free Z40. 

In May 2020, there was an outbreak of 90 cases of COVID19 in Puente Grande prison, where Z40 was being held. 

Z40 allegedly requested that he be tested for COVID but a shortage of tests led to his request being denied. 

His lawyers used this denial to allege that prison officials were "intending to let him [Z40] die" of COVID19, which spurred a judge to order that the test be administered to Z40. 

At the beginning of June 2020, an anonymous masked man created a video in which he warned President Lopez Obrador that Z40 and his lawyers had been planning an escape attempt from Puente Grande prison. 

The man claimed that the prison director had met with Z40's lawyers at a home in Guadalajara on three different occasions. He claimed that Z40 had prepared and was offering up $3 million dollars in exchange for the cooperation of the prison director in his upcoming escape attempt. 

Due to concern over this alleged escape plan, Z40 was transferred to Federal Prison #17 in Michoacan.

In June 2020, shortly after Z40 was transferred to Federal Prison #17 in Michoacan, Z40 made donations to the director of the facility: Julio César Pérez Ramírez.

These donations granted Z40 access to “special privileges” that were not given to other prisoners such as “access to (hand delivered) daily newspapers, as well as fresh fruit which had to be peeled and chopped in his presence because of his fear of being poisoned.”

Z40 also reportedly got to live in the "ECO" dormitory with four other people while most inmates in the facility were living in cells that were filled with 15 prisoners - over their expected capacity.

When Jorge Isaac Neri García took over the position of prison director in 2021, he too was treated to personal donations made by Z40.

In July 2021, Milenio newspaper released an expose on all the privileges that Z40 was receiving. The article led to Z40 being transferred to Federal Prison #15 located in Villa Comaltitlán, Chiapas, where he remains to this day.  

Sources: Noroeste, Los Angeles Press, AM, El Financiero, El Manana, Animal Politico, NMAs, AmarilloAlarcon, Riodoce, Zeta Tijuana, Expresso Oaxaca, De Primera Noticias, Milenio, El Manana

Further Reading 

Alleged Message from Z40 to a Town near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon