Posted on 11/10/2011 8:43:51 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
Laredo police on Tuesday and Wednesday rounded up five people they say carried out hits for the notorious Zetas drug cartel on this side of the Rio Grande.
Customs officers on Tuesday night detained Nicolas Reyes Sanchez, 48, identified in an arrest warrant affidavit as the supervisor of a group of Zetas operating in Laredo, as he attempted to enter the U.S. at one of the city's international bridges.
Starting early Wednesday, police launched a series of raids nabbing four more people accused of being Sanchez's subordinates and taking part in three homicides last year. Another man was arrested on drug charges during the raids, which netted police nine weapons, including handguns and rifles, and several high-capacity magazines.
Sanchez and his accused subordinates, Pablo Cerda, 35; Antonio Cerda Jr., 39; Jose Roberto Obregon, 28; and Rene Cruz III, 21, face charges of capital murder and engaging in organized criminal activity.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the Zetas paid lookouts between $100 and $200 each week to track their targets in the U.S. and hired gunmen to carry out the hits.
Sanchez, Obregon, identified as his “right-hand man” in the affidavit, and the Cerdas, identified as his lookouts in the affidavit, face charges in the slayings of Guillermo Ramon Rodriguez in June 2010, Ramon Lucero in July 2010 and Fidencio Cardenas in September 2010. Cruz faces charges only in the Cardenas killing. Laredo police have long acknowledged that Mexican drug cartels kill their rivals in the U.S., saying three killings last year might have been cartel related, but they're also quick to point out that the city of 250,000 saw only nine homicides last year.
“I think it is very realistic to think that they are operating on the U.S. side, and not just in the border but also in the interior of the United States,” said Laredo Police Chief Carlos Maldonado. “These organizations are very sophisticated. Along those lines as well, you still look at the statistics along the border and in our communities we are still very safe.”
He said the reason homicides tend to be so low in border communities is because of the attention U.S. law enforcement focuses on Mexican cartels. This week's arrests were the result of a joint effort by local and federal law enforcement, Maldonado said.
Officials wouldn't say what motive the Zetas had to eliminate the three victims, all of whom were killed outside their homes in the evening or late at night. In Cardenas' case, it might have been based on his family ties.
Two weeks before his Sept. 14, 2010, killing, his brother-in-law, a notorious figure in Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, was stabbed to death in Nuevo Laredo's prison. The brother-in-law, Jose Luis Carrizalez, had recently beat homicide charges in the border state of Nuevo Leon and was transferred to the Nuevo Laredo prison controlled by the Zetas, rivals of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was killed within days of arriving.
But the killing didn't stop there. According to the affidavit, several of Carrizalez's relatives were killed in Nuevo Laredo and his brother-in-law, Cardenas, had received threatening phone calls.
On the night of Sept. 13, 2010, two of Sanchez's scouts staked out a hospital where Cardenas was visiting family, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. They followed him at least as far as a conveniences store near his house. Shortly after midnight, as he arrived at his home, a vehicle pulled up and a man with a silenced pistol stepped out and shot Cardenas to death.
The arrests this week were related to the Sept. 19 arrests of Pablo Cerda and five others charged with kidnapping after police rescued their alleged victim.
Prosecutors will ask that the men charged with murder be held without bond because they're facing capital murder charges stemming from murder-for-hire plots, said Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz.
It's not unusual for cartels to operate on this side of the Rio Grande, said Alonzo Peña, the former deputy director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We have to be very mindful that these guys don't respect the borders,” he said. “They want to kill someone, they're going to cross over and come get him.”
He compared this week's arrests to a period in 2005 and 2006 when federal and local authorities in Laredo were able to thwart planned hits by the Zetas and their rivals and round up several crews of hit men. Those arrests resulted in dozens of convictions and lengthy prison sentences for some involved.
“Those guys realize that they're going to spend time in jail in the U.S.,” he said. “And the jail time is going to be significant.”
“We have to be very mindful that these guys don't respect the borders,” he said. “They want to kill someone, they're going to cross over and come get him.”
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