Meanwhile, Back Along the Texas - Mexico Border Things Are Getting More Violent

Maybe you saw the news about the 49 bodies that were found near Monterrey, Mexico earlier this month: well, the 49 torsos.  Seems the heads, hands, and feet had been removed.  Good luck with those identifications, right?  

Actually, the torsos were found near San Juan, on the highway that you would drive if you were leaving say Houston to visit Monterrey.  And you just might do that -- Monterrey is, after all, a huge industrial powerhouse, home to lots and lots of major international companies and Mexico's richest city. 

And Monterrey isn't a common destination for Texans just because of business: lots of folk I know have family down in Monterrey.  One friend of mine has a father who owns an apartment complex in Monterrey, part of his retirement plan.  You get the idea. 

It takes around 5 hours to drive from San Antonio to Dallas.  It also takes around 5 hours to drive from San Antonio to Monterrey. 

Message 3:  100% Zeta

Let's put it this way: last year, in a special report, Reuters predicted "if Monterrey falls, Mexico falls."  So, when 49 torsos are found on a major highway near Monterrey with a nearby cement archway spray-painted, "100% Zeta," it's not hard to figure that the major drug cartels are something that the Powers that Be need to be considering as serious business here in Texas and in the rest of the country, too.

Now, though, the carnage is getting closer to home.  Well, at least to San Antonio.

Message 2:  "Parasites"

Last month, there were also 23 bodies found in Nuevo Laredo, which is across the border from Laredo, Texas, and a mere 157 miles from San Antonio.  Years ago, we used to take day trips to shop in Nuevo Laredo.  No more.

Nine corpses were hanging from a bridge.  The remaining bodies were found decapitated, bagged, and stuffed into an SUV parked in front of the local Customs building.  (Yes, they did find the heads.  Later.)


The message with those bodies, according to the San Antonio Express News:

"This is how I am going to finish off all the fools you send to heat up the plaza ...We'll see you around, you bunch of parasites.” 

Message 1: Sinaloa Taking Nuevo Laredo Back

Then, there were 14 bodies left outside of Nuevo Laredo's City Hall last month.  They were also mutilated.  With those bodies, another message was written on a banner and signed (according to the banner itself) by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is the head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Part of that message?  Guzman was going to take Nuevo Laredo back from the Zetas, and had joined forces with the Gulf Cartel.

Who are the Zetas? 

Los Zetas are an efficient organization that originated as trained military personnel recruited by a powerful Mexican drug cartel, the Gulf Cartel.    These are commandos.  Special Forces folk.

Skilled, smart, savvy professionals - and understandably from a business perspective, in February 2010 they broke off to form their own independent organization.

Like an associate who becomes partner and then splits to form his own law firm, taking business with him.  Or at least, that's my analogy.  Point being, don't be distracted by the blood and gore: it's business to these guys.

Today, Los Zetas are known to operate out of Nuevo Laredo and they've got a big territory.  The biggest in Mexico, in fact.

Cartel business has expanded too: from drugs, it's gone into guns, and kidnapping for ransom, as well as human trafficking and who knows what else.  It's a business, and a growing business needs to diversify.

Los Zetas have diversified as well as expanding their territory. 

Which is what business does.  Now, if you were running the biggest company in your industry in Mexico, and you were projecting where your business would be in the next five years, where would your projections go?

Does Texas seem so farfetched?  Does Montana?  It's business. 

This isn't a gang war between two factions in the poor section of town.  This is two major, international combines fighting for who comes out on top in their market.  It's market share.  

So, in today's news where "El Loco" was arrested for taking part in the 49 beheadings event near Monterrey, a man named Daniel Jesus Elizondo Ramírez and a member of Los Zetas, this shouldn't be considered all that big of a deal.  He's an employee. 

Nor should the fact that the Treasury Department just put the names of four big wigs in the Sinaloa drug cartel to its "kingpin list," two of which are the sons of the CEO of the Sineloa organization, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.   Being on the Kingpin List means that the U.S. Government can freeze any assets found in the United States as well as barring anyone from doing business with them. 

"El Chapo" is the most wanted man in Mexico.   He's been on the Kingpin List since 2001.  "El Chapo" also made Forbes' Billionaire List in 2012 (he's number 1153) and Forbes lists Guzman as number 55 in this year's 70 World's Most Powerful People.

Would anyone be surprised to learn that the day that this post was typed, this guy was off someplace nice playing golf?  I know I wouldn't.  It seems like something a billionaire CEO would be doing....

Zetas vs. Sineloa:  Fight for Sales Territory and Market Share Between Two Industry Leaders

It seems to me that too many people hear about the nicknames and the bloodbaths and think that these are strange, emotional groups of illiterates who will just kill each other off in time.  I think that's stupid.

This is business at a scale that most of us cannot comprehend.  It's billions of dollars in revenue, and I'm wondering if that is monthly not annually.  

And maybe that's why we're not hearing that much or seeing that much happening here in Texas to stop this advance.  The profit-motive is a powerful thing. 

Texas Border Shootout Near McAllen - and Other Texas-Mexico Border News This Week

News today out of the Texas Valley is the latest shootout at the border.  This time, it's near McAllen and one Texas rancher told reporters he saw men in helicopters shooting other men down on the ground.  Let's hope all that happened on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande.

For local news coverage, read this story in The Monitor.  

Also in the news: the border agents at McAllen's Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge popped the trunk of a car going from Texas into Mexico because the driver was acting really nervous when they stopped him (that's routine, there on the bridge).   Looking down into the trunk, the agents saw a young man in handcuffs with duct tape over his mouth.  

The driver has been arrested for kidnapping and the kid (nope, that guy in the trunk wasn't an adult) has been checked out by doctors. 

Third story.  Last week, down in Mathis (which is pretty close to Corpus Christi and not really a border town at all) on a Farm to Market Road (FM 666 -- spooky, right?) a shiny Lincoln SUV was cruising along when it was spotted by U.S. Border Patrol and signaled to pull over.  Choosing instead to speed off, the Lincoln didn't stop -- and the 20 year old Mexican national who was driving didn't stop for a Border Patrol agent who stood in the road trying to flag him down. 

The kid, only 20 years old, was seen as a threat to that agent and the agent shot him - the guy in the road shooting the guy behind the wheel, killing him. 

Lots of agencies are investigating this incident -- the FBI, Homeland Security, etc. -- and it's not clear what if anything was in the SUV that day. 

Falcon Lake Killing of Colorado Tourist - a Mystery Playing Out on the Texas Mexico Border

I've lived in San Antonio for most of my life - and my family has been in Texas for the past seven generations, with ties to various communities from the Killeen/Belton area (now Fort Hood) over to Hallettsville (nearer to Houston) and down to Corpus Christi. 

Lots of family stories about lots of Texas sites, along with the usual folklore.  Pecos Bill, the Donkey Lady, the Indian lovers who threw themselves off the cliff near Floresville, the ghosts of the school bus kids who push your car over the tracks near Mission Road.

Suddenly, we're all hearing about Falcon Lake

No one ever talked about Falcon Lake, much less went there to fish for bass.  I never, ever heard about Falcon Lake until I started doing research on the drug cartels for a writing project.  Falcon Lake is big, and it sets there on the Texas-Mexican border, a big bubble of the Rio Grande - 60 miles long.  Part of the lake is in Mexico, and part of the lake is Texan.

Which all goes to provide backstory to my following of this news story: the couple from Colorado, down on Falcon Lake having fun when some Mexican pirates shot the husband in the head - and now his body is missing and Governor Perry is getting lotsa press coverage, demanding that Mexico help find the victim's remains. 

Within the past hour, there's been a press conference where the Zavala County Sheriff is reporting that  blood evidence supports a belief that members of the Zeta drug cartel were the mysterious pirates that shot at the vacationing couple, presumably to enforce their borders in an ongoing cartel drug war. 

Wow.

Falcon Lake? Really?  FoxNews is reporting that search teams continue to look for David Michael Hartley, 30, in the Mexican part of Falcon Lake, based upon the information provided by Tiffany Hartley, 29, who has told authorities that her husband was shot in the head by one or more men from two boats that accosted them as the couple were riding the lake on Jet Skis. 

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has notified the public that David Hartley's encounter is the 5th report of Americans crossing paths with Mexican pirates on the waters of Falcon Lake.  From the DPS news release, these prior incidents are (quoting from the DPS release):

1. April 30, 2010: Four heavily armed men boarded two boats near the Old Guerrero area demanding money. The bandits were given $200 in cash and tried to follow the U.S. boats as they sped back to U.S. waters. The bandits stopped once they reached the United States boundary.
2. May 6, 2010: Two armed men approached a boat near Marker 14 on the north side of Salado Island on top of the ruins at Old Guerrero. The men demanded money, which the fishermen gave them.
3. May 16, 2010: Five armed men boarded a boat on the United States side of the lake near Marker 7. Investigators have no further information on the incident.
4. Aug 31, 2010: Falcon Lake pirates, using a small boat marked “Game Wardin” using duct-taped letters to possibly mimic Texas Parks and Wildlife vessels operating in Texas waters, attempted to stop a Texas fisherman. His knowledge of previous DPS safety warnings about Falcon Lake and the misspelling of the word “Warden” alerted the fisherman that something was wrong and he outran the Mexican vessel to safety.

Here's what I think.  I think that this couple did cross a line in the water that day, and two boats did chase them down, shooting guns in what must have been a terrifying experience for the poor woman who survived this encounter.  

Calling these shooters "pirates," however gives them a romantic label that isn't appropriate, though.  These aren't colleagues of Captain Jack Sparrow we're talking about here. 

I doubt that the couple looked like they were running drugs, poaching business from the drug professionals.  And, illegal drugs - along with guns, ammo, and human trafficking - is big business in my part of the world.  It's not legal, and it's not advertised on TV, but it's here. 

The big elephant in the room.  The 800 pound gorilla. 

When I follow this story, what I read is that the Zetas are claiming Falcon Lake as their own.  This isn't a big surprise here in Texas -- we stopped Christmas shopping in Nuevo Laredo several years back, so this is just another spot we're savvy to avoid. 

What I'm wondering is when the rest of the country is going to get up to speed here.  And, what's going to be the solution to this growing violence? 

It's nice to think that there's a big, bold border between Texas and Mexico - but that's only on maps.  Here in San Antonio, we know it's a murky co-mingling of cultures that starts somewhere south of town.  And, it's getting closer to our city limits every day. 

Coyotes on the Border: $1500 a head is good money

You work Children's Court - like I do - and you hear things. Especially when you're representing kids in CPS cases that are within a day's drive of the US-Mexico border.

And, this week, I learned some thought-provoking info about running Mexican nationals across the border. Each immigrant pays $1500 to the smuggler (here, we call them coyotes) to get him safely to his US destination.

At $1500/head, that's really good money. And it is apparently a booming business in a bad economy.

Sure, Border Patrol knows about this. They're trying. But think about it. You are a Mexican American, or I suppose you could be anyone as long as you have contacts in Mexico.

You aren't educated, and you've got kids to raise. Times are tough.

So, you make some arrangements and you drive your car down near the border. Maybe you stop at the Dairy Queen outside of Laredo. Maybe you just pull up next to a certain mile marker not far from Brownsville.

And, suddenly, 7 people rush to your car, or minivan, or SUV, and jump in. You speed off, and within an hour or two, you've dropped them off at their cousin's house. In San Antonio, or Austin, or San Marcos or somewhere.

And, in one afternoon, you've made $10,500.00.

Sure, that's gross revenue. You'll have to pay the Mexican contact some of it. You'll maybe have to pay the drug cartels a portion, if they know you're operating. But even if those costs run 50%, you've still made $5250 in one afternoon.

And $5250 net for one afternoon's driving is very good money indeed.

For more, read this discussion of women becoming coyotes.