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PATH OF DESTRUCTION | RISE OF THE ZETAS

Sunday, March 13, 2011

19A

Family is used like the maa

Continued from Page 18A

the U.S. Armys Special Forces. Known in Mexico by the acronym of GAFES, for Grupo Aeromvil de Fuerzas Especiales (Special Forces Air Mobile Group), they were tasked with taking down the countrys burgeoning drug cartels. Members of the unit received training at U.S. military bases, including Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, according to a database created through military reports to Congress by the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank. At least 35 of those original GAFES members switched sides, authorities say, joining the narcotics trafficking force of Osiel Crdenas and becoming armed enforcers for his Gulf cartel, named for its home base near the Gulf of Mexico and just south of Brownsville. The paramilitary group flourished, eventually growing to more than 1,000 members and breaking away from the Gulf cartel to go into business for itself, according to the federal agent and Zetas expert. A Mexican intelligence offi-

cial, speaking on condition of anonymity, played down the role of U.S. training as some of the original GAFES members formed the nucleus of the Zetas. Who trained who is irrelevant, the official said. The fact is the Zetas, whether trained directly or indirectly by U.S. Special Forces have become force multipliers. Theyre terrorizing our country and represent the biggest threat to the countrys national security.

Wide-ranging group
The organization is equal parts commando brigade, intelligence service, public relations firm and Fortune 500 company. Workers are drawn extensively from family, making it difficult for law enforcement to infiltrate. Its like the mafia, Stamm said. Youre going to utilize people you know. Its members arm themselves in large part from a steady supply of thousands of military-style guns, including long-range .50-caliber rifles, from Texas and other U.S. border states to get around stiff Mexican gun laws.

File 2010/Agence France-Presse

Guatemalan police in December rounded up four men believed to be members of the Zetas in Coban, a city in the north central province of Alta Verapaz, about 135 miles north of Guatemala City.

The cartels chief engineer, who was arrested in 2008 and charged in Houston, built and ran a sophisticated communications network throughout Mexico using short-distance walkie-talkies to avoid wiretaps, court documents show. He also set up covert camera systems throughout Mexico to spy on authorities activities.

The group has a sophisticated record-keeping system using laptops and flash drives, authorities say. Members keep databases of cocaine shipment amounts, identities of bosses over smuggling routes, payroll, payments made to law enforcement officials, and money received and owed, according to a federal indictment of the

group pending in Washington D.C. The group uses a range of media to present itself to the public. It hung banners in Nuevo Laredo in 2008 seeking soldiers to join its ranks. Videos of some of the groups beheadings can be found online. Some cartel trucks and SUVs in Mexico are adorned with painted Zs,

an open challenge to Mexican military forces battling them.

Ransom and theft

To protect its cash flow from volatility in the international drug market, the cartel has diversified in recent years, rampSee COURT Page 20A

Clues scarce in local cartel killings

Drug hits here are specic and calculating, authorities say
By JASON TRAHAN
Staff Writer jtrahan@dallasnews.com

Bullet-riddled bodies in burned-out vehicles. A mother assassinated after dropping her daughter off at school. A Hummer blanketed with machine gun fire in a restaurant parking lot. These are scenes that have become common in the drug war raging in Mexico. Except these are four Dallas killings, believed to be linked to Mexican drug cartel operations in North Texas. These guys are vicious, and they are for real, said Detective Dwayne Thompson, the lead investigator in the death of Raquel Ramrez. She was shot in front of her Far East Dallas home after dropping her daughter off at school last year in what police suspect was a cartel hit. The case remains unsolved, and clues are scant, police said. This cartel business is some different kind of stuff, Thompson said. They come to town. They take care of their business. They do the killing, and theyre gone. Police commanders acknowledge that Mexican drug cartels and their U.S. affiliates have a presence in Dallas. Killings, they say, are rare and targeted. We dont have people coming in and kidnapping and killing people at random, said Deputy Chief Craig Miller, commander over the homicide unit, which has seen murders citywide drop to a 50-year low. They are specific and calculating, he said. In many instances, the people who commit these crimes have not been in our country very long. Knowing which cartel is responsible for which death is not always possible, authorities say. Police have trouble gathering even basic information about victims of suspected cartel hits. Overcome by fear, some families leave town and do not even leave contact information for the homicide detectives searching for their loved ones killer. In many cases, the victim is connected to drug trafficking. The recent killings mirror another spate of violence here in 2004 and 2005, when the first local reports surfaced that the Zetas, a group that began as

Mexican military commandos turned drug cartel enforcers, were establishing Dallas as a main narcotics transshipment hub. Authorities say all the cartels know that committing violent acts here would bring the heat of American law enforcement, as well as policymakers bent on looking tough on drug traffickers. Still, disputes that start in Mexico occasionally are settled in Dallas, sometimes with bloodshed. We are seeing an impact of drug politics from Mexico affecting hits on the streets of Dallas, said Jeffrey Stamm, assistant special agent in charge of the Dallas office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which gathers intelligence on cartel activities and prosecutes cartel-level crimes. Local DEA officials have been working with Dallas homicide investigators, providing drug-related intelligence to them to help identify, if not the suspects, at least an organization or reason behind these homicides, Stamm said. Investigators say drug hits fit a pattern: specific, almost surgical target selection by assailants who seem to vanish, presumably back across the border, leaving behind only scant clues and witnesses too afraid to talk. All but one of these cases remains unsolved.

File 2010/Staff Photo

Neighbors kept vigil last March near the site where 42-year-old Raquel Ramirez was gunned down on her front lawn in Old East Dallas. Police believe the victim, who had just dropped off her daughter at school, was killed over a drug debt left by her husband.

detectives to this theory: Ramrez died over a drug debt left behind by her husband, who RAQUEL himself had RAMREZ been taken to Mexico and assassinated. Ramrezs family has left town, afraid for their lives, detectives say. Clues have dried up. The case remains unsolved.

Body in back seat

Dallas firefighters responding to a burning Chevrolet Avalanche about 11 p.m. on Aug. 25 in the 2200 block of Haymarket Road in the Rylie area found a body in the back seat. An autopsy revealed the victim had been shot several times. Using dental records, investigators identified the remains as 33year-old Jos Hernndez Jr. of Oak Cliff. We just got home from the hospital that afternoon, said Hernndezs wife, Rosie Alvarez, who had given birth. She said she sent him on an errand to a nearby Family Dollar. I never saw him again. Later that evening, she said, he called her, frantic. She said he told her to get a bag he had hidden. I was trying to do everything he asked, she said, newborn in tow. About the same time, a witness near the store reported seeing someone force a man in-

Mark of a professional
From the beginning, Raquel Ramrezs death had all the classic signs of a professional hit. Last year, on the morning of March 4, the 42-year-old mother had just dropped her teenage daughter off at Bishop Lynch High School and was getting out of her SUV when a Ford Taurus drove up. Someone got out, calmly walked up, shot her multiple times and disappeared. Patrol officers found the getaway car abandoned in a nearby parking lot. It had been purchased days before with cash. Family and friends alluded to drug trafficking as a motive, but specifics were scarce. Talking to family members and other sources, including an old-school drug runner serving a life sentence in Huntsville, led

to a vehicle. The witness did not speak Spanish and could not understand what was being said. JOS Officers reHERNNDEZ sponded but JR. found nothing. Detectives suspect it was Hernndez. After he was found dead, police found a large quantity of cocaine and cash in his familys home. Police have no suspects. Alvarez, who has two young children, said she did not know her husband was involved in drugs but now suspects he was the victim of cartel violence.

The burning minivan

At 2 a.m. on June 7, the body of a man was found in a burning Dodge minivan with Mexican license plates in the 100 block of West Crestwood Drive in east Oak Cliff. The remains later were identified as those of 38year-old Juan Carlos Garza Guajardo. Detectives say Garza lived in Monterrey, Mexico, but regularly drove to Texas, mostly around Houston, gathering collectibles for resale in Mexico. Dallas police soon confirmed their suspicions about a possible motive: One of Garzas phone numbers had surfaced in two federal drug investigations. Police believe that while on his junk-shop runs, Garza either

couriered drug shipments north or smuggled cartel cash south. Detectives still do not know why he was in Dallas. Garzas burned-out van was parked in a secluded, dead-end street next to a church. Its like a signature, Dallas homicide Sgt. Joseph Garza said of the fire the killers set, which obliterated nearly all physical evidence, including the bodys JUAN fingerprints. CARLOS I definitely GARZA think its drugGUAJARDO related, Detective Rick Duggan said. Im not sure if the suspects are local or not.

Ambush in Oak Cliff

At 2:50 a.m. on April 20, 2009, a black Hummer pulled into the parking lot of the Morelia Mexican restaurant on North Plymouth Road and West Jefferson Boulevard in west Oak Cliff. Antonio AvilesSnchez, 37, was sitting in the back seat. One of the passengers got out to open a security gate when, police say, at least two gunmen ambushed the vehicle with bursts of machine gun fire. Aviles-Snchez and others shot back as the gunmen ran away, police said. Nearly 40 rounds were fired. Police recovered a

Chinese-made semiautomatic rifle at the scene. It is unclear where it was purchased. AvilesSnchez died of his wounds. Police followed a blood trail to Jos Arrez Rangel, 35, who was hiding under a bridge about a half-mile away. Rangel had been shot in the foot. After he was treated, he was hauled to the homicide unit for questioning. He told police he had crossed the river in Laredo and traveled to Houston and then Dallas, looking for work. Police determined that he was an assassin who had come across the border three days earlier. Known hit man for drug cartel, police wrote on Rangels jail paperwork, seeking a $2 million bond from the judge. Familia La gang. His trial is set for this ANTONIO spring. AVILESAviles-SnSNCHEZ chez, who lived in Oak Cliff, was from the city of Morelia in the Mexican state of Michoacn, according to a friend in Dallas who did not want her name used for fear of retribution. She said she did not have details about how he made a living but had heard from others that he was killed by rivals. Aviles-Snchezs mother returned to Mexico after her sons death, she said. Michoacn is the home base of La Familia, which at the time was a powerful rival of the Zetas in Dallas. Authorities say the drug gang JOS ARREZ is on the deRANGEL cline. When he died, Aviles-Snchez was under investigation for his association with Jos Luis Reyes-Tavera of Lancaster. In October 2009, authorities charged Reyes-Tavera with being a local cell leader for La Familia cartel, along with 14 codefendants. Reyes-Tavera is a fugitive and is believed to be in Mexico. The case was one of several locally identified as part of Project Coronado, a nationwide DEA-led La Familia crackdown. A third of the 300 arrests around the U.S. were in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Its sad but true that the violence we see in Mexico on television is now in Dallas, AvilesSnchezs friend said. Lets just hope it doesnt get any worse.

A19 M 03-13-2011 Set: 21:57:02 Sent by: alozoya@dallasnews.com News

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