Mexicos' Los Zetas Cartel Buying Heavy Weapons in Central America

Latin America Herald Tribune reports that according to the same sources, Mexican organized crime gangs still lack the training to use the heavy weapons in clashes with security forces.

Los Zetas military training

(MONTERREY, Mexico ) - Los Zetas, Mexico’s most violent criminal organization, is purchasing heavy weapons in Central America for use in clashes with army soldiers, the Defense Secretariat says.

Sources from the 4th Military Region, responsible for security in the northern states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi, told Efe Thursday that Los Zetas and other criminal gangs are purchasing “anti-armored-vehicle rockets and armaments.”

These weapons, believed to be leftovers from the armed conflicts that plagued Central America between the 1960s and 1980s, are being sold on the black market.

According to the same sources, Mexican organized crime gangs still lack the training to use the heavy weapons in clashes with security forces.

Los Zetas, which is led by fugitive Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, alias “El Lazca,” and has its stronghold in northeastern Mexico, has spread its tentacles to Central America.

That band of special forces deserters turned outlaws started out as the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel, but ended that relationship in March 2010 to go into business for itself and is now at war with its former bosses.

Authorities say Los Zetas have increasingly turned to kidnapping and migrant-trafficking rackets and have a strong presence in Guatemala, where they slaughtered 27 hired hands at a ranch in May.

The 4th Military Region presented a final report Thursday on Operation Scorpion, launched on Aug. 28 to weaken the command, financial, operational and logistical structures of organized crime gangs in Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Tamaulipas states.

During the operation, launched after an arson attack on a casino in the northern industrial city of Monterrey that killed 52 people, the army seized four rockets and seven anti-tank weapons, as well as 28 grenade launchers and 345 grenades.

Security forces also detained 1,093 people and killed 112 suspected criminals in clashes that also left two soldiers dead and 18 others wounded.

They also confiscated 3,099 weapons, 9 boats, 1,355 vehicles, including 62 armored cars, more than 50 tons of marijuana, 11.7 million pesos ($866,666) and $910,000 in cash and more than 735,000 liters (almost 195,000 gallons) of fuel.

Scorpion led to the arrest of Carlos Oliva Castillo, Los Zetas’ purported No. 3 and an alleged mastermind of the arson attack on the Casino Royale, carried out because the gaming establishment’s owner refused to pay protection money in an extortion racket the gang was running.

Also detained in the operation were Marco Garza de Leon, the purported Los Zetas chief in several Nuevo Leon municipalities, and Jose Garcia Casino, that cartel’s boss in San Luis Potosi.

A total of 1,500 soldiers deployed to Monterrey’s metropolitan area after the casino massacre will be redeployed throughout the four states of the 4th Military Region, the Defense Secretariat said.

Shortly after taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon gave Mexico’s military the lead role in the struggle with the well-funded drug cartels.

Since his inauguration, drug-war violence has claimed nearly 50,000 lives nationwide. EFE

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