Mexican cartels battle for key N. Texas hub

09:50 PM CDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005

By JASON TRAHAN, ERNESTO LONDOÑO and ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

The men were grilling steaks, drinking beer and shooting pool in the open garage of a West Oak Cliff home when the red car rolled up.

The driver approached them slowly that chilly night last December, walking past the motorized wooden reindeer bobbing in the front yard. It was nearly 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, and the holiday lights strung on the Mimi Court house shone dimly on his face.

No words were exchanged, and the man's motive wasn't immediately revealed. But his mission was clear.

"He pulled a weapon and began shooting," said Cesar Tinajero, a 29-year-old Fort Worth native who was at the house that night. "Twenty seconds later, I was on the floor and I couldn't move."

One man was dead and three were injured by the time the shooter fled.

But this was not a typical shooting in crime-ridden West Oak Cliff. It occurred at the home of Gilberto Lugo, who some authorities believe is a North Texas leader of the Juárez cartel, the most powerful and feared drug-trafficking gang in Mexico. Although injured, Mr. Lugo escaped.

For five years, the Juárez cartel has been battling its archrival, the Gulf cartel, for control of drug routes into the United States – a bloody feud that has turned parts of the Texas-Mexico border into a virtual war zone.

Most coveted of those routes is Interstate 35, which extends from the banks of the Rio Grande to the shores of Lake Superior.

Authorities fear that the growing border violence has moved up the I-35 corridor to Dallas, whose major roadways and airports make it among the most important drug distribution points in the country, drug authorities say. In early June, a federal task force arrested more than three dozen people, most of them in Dallas, in a major drug bust that officials said involved Mexican drug cartels...

Cartel enforcers operate in Dallas

Trained by U.S. Army, commandos oversee drug, alien smuggling

09:51 PM CDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

Elements of the Zetas, feared enforcers for the notorious Gulf drug cartel, have been operating in the Dallas area for at least two years, according to the Justice Department.

The original Zetas are former Mexican army commandos, some apparently trained in the U.S. by Army special forces to combat drug gangs. Members of a broader Zetas organization have worked for the Gulf cartel since 2001. They provide firepower, security and the force needed to oversee shipments of narcotics and smuggled aliens along the border and up Interstate 35.

According to FBI officials, the Zetas want to consolidate their control of the smuggling route along I-35 in Texas from Laredo to Dallas for the Gulf cartel. Anyone caught not paying the 10 percent commission they charge on all cargo – drugs or humans – is killed, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources.

The Zetas also specialize in settling scores with rival drug-trafficking organizations in Dallas and other cities, according to U.S. investigators and a Justice Department memo.

"Texas law enforcement officials report that the Zetas have been active in the Dallas area since 2003," said the March 15 Justice Department intelligence bulletin circulated among U.S. law enforcement officials. "Eight to ten members of the Zetas have been involved in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs in the area ... for contract killings."

In addition to Dallas, the Zetas are spreading fast from the Texas border region into Houston and San Antonio and into other states including California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, according to the Justice Department bulletin. The agency said it had also learned that the group has begun establishing its own trafficking routes into the United States and apparently will protect them at any cost.

"U.S. law enforcement have reported bounties offered by Los Zetas of between $30,000 and $50,000 for the killing of Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers," the bulletin said. "If a Zeta kills an American law enforcement officer and can successfully make it back to Mexico, his stature within the organization will be increased dramatically." ...