MEXICO CITY—The head of the Gulf Cartel, once one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, was in custody Sunday after Mexican soldiers captured him close to the U.S. border a day earlier.
The arrest is a boost for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has promised to continue fighting the drug war begun by former President Felipe Calderón, while focusing more of the government’s attention on lowering Mexico’s high rates of drug-linked homicides, extortion and kidnapping. Drug-linked killings in the first half of the year have fallen about 18% to 6,300 from the prior six months, according to Mexican government officials.
In a brief communiqué late Saturday, the Mexican government said it had captured Mario Armando Ramirez Treviño, also known as “X-20″ and “El Pelon,” or Baldy. The Gulf Cartel, which once had a virtual monopoly on drug trafficking on Mexico’s Gulf coast, has been decimated in recent years by bloody turf wars with other criminal groups and by government captures of leading cartel bosses.
A senior U.S. official said Mexican army special forces had detained Mr. Ramirez Treviño and four other Gulf Cartel members in a house in the town of Casa del Valle in the northern state of Tamaulipas, close to the U.S. border. “It’s a big takedown,” the U.S. official said.
Mr. Ramirez Treviño’s detention is the second capture of a top cartel boss in little over a month. In July, Miguel Angel Treviño, the head of the Zetas cartel—Mexico’s most violent organized-crime group—and no relation to Mr. Ramirez Treviño, was captured by Mexican navy marines.
Mr. Ramirez Treviño, 51 years old, is wanted for drug trafficking in the U.S., which comes with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He had taken over the leadership of the Gulf Cartel from Jorge Costilla, known as “El Coss,” who was captured in September.
The Gulf Cartel’s power has been much diminished since it became embroiled in a turf war with the Zetas. Originally a group of army special forces deserters who became enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas have been fighting their former employers since 2010.
“The Gulf Cartel is a shadow of what it was,” said Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican security official who now works for the nonprofit Mexican Institute of Competitiveness. “The capture of Ramirez Treviño is an important capture, but not of the first rank.”
The Gulf Cartel still has control over some parts of the eastern border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, Mr. Hope said.
Mr. Ramirez Treviño’s base was the border city of Reynosa, which earlier this year was rocked by a wave of violence as Mr. Ramirez Treviño’s group fought off other criminal gangs.
“I see him as the capo who controlled the city,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, associate professor and expert on the border at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Since taking office in December, Mr. Peña Nieto has focused on enacting a set of ambitious economic reforms including opening Mexico’s energy sector to private investment. But outbreaks of drug violence, notably in the western state of Michoacán where a drug cartel known as the Knights Templar has been confronting the Mexican armed forces and federal police, have managed at times to steal attention from Mr. Peña Nieto’s reform agenda.
Last month, the Knights Templar ambushed and killed a navy vice admiral, the highest-ranking military officer killed since former President Calderón sent the armed forces in 2006 to recover large swaths of territory lost to powerful drug gangs. At least 70,000 Mexicans have died in drug-linked violence since then.
The violence in Michoacán continued over the weekend. The bodies of nine people who had been killed were found in an agricultural area of the state where armed community-defense groups have emerged to fight back against the Knights Templar, which has submitted farmers and small-business owners to widespread extortion. Media reports said another 17 bodies were found in the neighboring state of Guerrero, which also has been the site of turf wars between criminal organizations.
“Peña Nieto thought the security issue was going to disappear if he didn’t talk about it, but all of a sudden it has re-emerged and it will continue to do so,” said Jorge Chabat, a security expert at CIDE, a Mexico City-based think tank. “That area is out of control.”
Mr. Chabat said the capture should also help the Mexican government recoup some ground after the surprise release earlier this month of Rafael Caro Quintero, a notorious drug lord who was convicted of the 1984 torture-murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. Mr. Caro Quintero was ordered freed, after serving 28 years in prison, by a panel of judges that concluded he had been tried before the wrong court.
Released before dawn, the white-haired Mr. Caro Quintero, 61, promptly went to ground. The order to free him angered the U.S. government, which wants Mr. Caro Quintero extradited. At the time, Mr. Camarena’s brutal murder plunged relations between Mexico and the U.S. into their worst crisis in years.
Since Mr. Caro Quintero’s release, a Mexican judge has ordered he be detained and held for extradition to the U.S. But it is uncertain whether he will ever be found. The decision to free him will continue to be an irritant in U.S.-Mexican relations, Mr. Chabat said.
“It complicates things for the Mexican government, which looks inept or corrupt or both,” Mr. Chabat said.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
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