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| Zetas leader's death is a high point for Calderón – but not an end to drug war | Zetas leader's death is a high point for Calderón – but not an end to drug war |
| (10 days later) | |
| The reported killing of the leader of the ferocious Zetas narco cartel, Heriberto Lazcano, by Mexican marines is a major coup for the armed forces battling the world's wildest criminal syndicates. | The reported killing of the leader of the ferocious Zetas narco cartel, Heriberto Lazcano, by Mexican marines is a major coup for the armed forces battling the world's wildest criminal syndicates. |
| If this is Lazcano, President Felipe Calderón – who is nearing the end of a term marked by a catastrophic war against the cartels – will be able to claim with justification that it is a high point of his period in office. It also gives the incoming government of the rival PRI party new momentum to prosecute the war against the Zetas. | If this is Lazcano, President Felipe Calderón – who is nearing the end of a term marked by a catastrophic war against the cartels – will be able to claim with justification that it is a high point of his period in office. It also gives the incoming government of the rival PRI party new momentum to prosecute the war against the Zetas. |
| Lazcano, right, filled a crucial role in the genealogy and tactics of Mexico's crime syndicates. He ranked high in the country's – and the world's – most wanted lists, along with Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán, leader of the Zetas' rival gang, the vast Sinaloa cartel. But the two come from very different lineages and present the government with different challenges. | Lazcano, right, filled a crucial role in the genealogy and tactics of Mexico's crime syndicates. He ranked high in the country's – and the world's – most wanted lists, along with Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán, leader of the Zetas' rival gang, the vast Sinaloa cartel. But the two come from very different lineages and present the government with different challenges. |
| Guzmán is a modern incarnation of the "old school" mafia don, claiming the mantle of a family that ran narco trafficking for decades through a vicious, pyramidal structure. But the recent bloody history of Mexico's cartels has been one of constantly pushing the bounds of savagery, breaking down the old "corporate" nature of cartel control, with contacts in politics. The Zetas are the cartel of our time: their violence is perverse – almost innovative – in its cruelty, adept on the internet, unrelenting in every way. | Guzmán is a modern incarnation of the "old school" mafia don, claiming the mantle of a family that ran narco trafficking for decades through a vicious, pyramidal structure. But the recent bloody history of Mexico's cartels has been one of constantly pushing the bounds of savagery, breaking down the old "corporate" nature of cartel control, with contacts in politics. The Zetas are the cartel of our time: their violence is perverse – almost innovative – in its cruelty, adept on the internet, unrelenting in every way. |
| The Zetas were founded by Guzman's nemesis, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, as a paramilitary enforcement wing of the Gulf cartel, and they rapidly set new limits in violence and insurgent tactics. Lazcano was a key lieutenant, and after Cárdenas was arrested – he is now in jail in Texas – the Gulf cartel split and the Zetas became a cartel in their own right, under Lazcano's control. | The Zetas were founded by Guzman's nemesis, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, as a paramilitary enforcement wing of the Gulf cartel, and they rapidly set new limits in violence and insurgent tactics. Lazcano was a key lieutenant, and after Cárdenas was arrested – he is now in jail in Texas – the Gulf cartel split and the Zetas became a cartel in their own right, under Lazcano's control. |
| As such, they have pitched themselves wildly against every other criminal syndicate in the country – and many beyond, becoming Mexico's bridge to the European cocaine trade through an alliance with an Italian group, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, which has mirrored their tactics. | As such, they have pitched themselves wildly against every other criminal syndicate in the country – and many beyond, becoming Mexico's bridge to the European cocaine trade through an alliance with an Italian group, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, which has mirrored their tactics. |
| With a smaller narcotic base than Guzmán from which to work, the Zetas expanded their business to take over migration rackets into the US. This led to the largest single massacre of the drugs war, the killing of 72 central Americans who, it is believed, refused to pay the Zetas' "toll" for illegally crossing the border. Under Lazcano's leadership their affairs included widespread extortion, kidnapping, prostitution and the export of stolen oil to the US. Lazcano's paramilitary troops even battle Guzmán's men for cocaine trade routes through Guatemala and El Salvador, and have turned Mexico's showpiece cosmopolitan city, Monterrey – which thought itself immune – into a battleground. | With a smaller narcotic base than Guzmán from which to work, the Zetas expanded their business to take over migration rackets into the US. This led to the largest single massacre of the drugs war, the killing of 72 central Americans who, it is believed, refused to pay the Zetas' "toll" for illegally crossing the border. Under Lazcano's leadership their affairs included widespread extortion, kidnapping, prostitution and the export of stolen oil to the US. Lazcano's paramilitary troops even battle Guzmán's men for cocaine trade routes through Guatemala and El Salvador, and have turned Mexico's showpiece cosmopolitan city, Monterrey – which thought itself immune – into a battleground. |
| But there is no reason to suppose the scourge of violence will abate because of Lazcano's reported killing, and if it does, that the influence of the narco cartels will decline. For like Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas are also taking territory. In several parts of Mexico police and even the political apparatus have come under their control – just as others are under Guzmán's. | But there is no reason to suppose the scourge of violence will abate because of Lazcano's reported killing, and if it does, that the influence of the narco cartels will decline. For like Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas are also taking territory. In several parts of Mexico police and even the political apparatus have come under their control – just as others are under Guzmán's. |
| One possible option available to Mexico's new president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI, is to do a deal of some sort with Guzmán to secure a return to the old, pre-Calderón "order", whereby a kind of conviviality existed between Guzmán's family elders from Sinaloa and Guadalajara and the PRI's formidable political structure. | One possible option available to Mexico's new president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI, is to do a deal of some sort with Guzmán to secure a return to the old, pre-Calderón "order", whereby a kind of conviviality existed between Guzmán's family elders from Sinaloa and Guadalajara and the PRI's formidable political structure. |
| The Sinaloa cartel, which has many clients in Mexico, is the only organisation with which any hope of such arrangements can lie, such has been the ferocity of the Zetas under Cardenas and Lazcarno. | The Sinaloa cartel, which has many clients in Mexico, is the only organisation with which any hope of such arrangements can lie, such has been the ferocity of the Zetas under Cardenas and Lazcarno. |
| With the death of Lazcano, we can expect the war against the Zetas to be scaled up, and a bloody reaction from Lazcano's heirs to ensue. Guzmán, meanwhile, will watch and wait for his moment. | With the death of Lazcano, we can expect the war against the Zetas to be scaled up, and a bloody reaction from Lazcano's heirs to ensue. Guzmán, meanwhile, will watch and wait for his moment. |
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