Gangland (10 page)

That move led the Tijuana Cartel to form an alliance with the Gulf Cartel. To compensate, the Sinaloa and Beltrán Leyva Cartels formed a pact with the Juárez Cartel, effectively creating two opposing groups of drug-trafficking organizations.

By the beginning of 2005, the Sinaloa and Beltrán Leyva Cartels were believed by the DEA to have as many as 40 men working in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, which is the heart of the Gulf Cartel's territory. In May, 2005, Guzmán Loera, surrounded by 30 of his men, walked into the posh Paseo Colon restaurant in downtown Nuevo Laredo. His security detail locked the doors, confiscated cell phones from the restaurant's employees and 40 or so patrons “for security purposes,” ate a large meal, then paid for it and everybody else's, leaving a substantial tip.

That affront could not be tolerated by the Gulf Cartel, probably the most violent of all the cartels, and may actually have been the spark that ignited the Mexican Drug War. At least, it was seen as a declaration of war between the two cartel alliances.

Original Gulf chief Juan García Ábrego was arrested soon after the creation of the cartel. He was replaced by Oscar Malherbe De León, who was himself arrested almost immediately afterwards. Sergio “El Checko” Gómez Garcia, took over and ruled for two weeks before being murdered by Salvador “Chava” (Chick) Gómez. He was soon killed by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who earned the nickname “El Mata Amigos” (the Friend Killer) and undisputed leadership of the organization.

Trouble in Nuevo Laredo

While he was consolidating his power, Cárdenas Guillén came up with a devilishly clever and effective plan. He was well aware of a group of Army special forces officers called
Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales
(Special Forces Airmobile Group, or GAFE) who went through an intensive, six-month counter-insurgency and urban warfare training course from American, French and Israeli specialists. It was originally formed to provide security for the 1986 World Cup, but had become the government's primary weapon against the cartels.

By bribing and threatening government officials, Cárdenas Guillén managed to gain access to the unit's secret records and approached Lieutenant Arturo Guzmán Decena, who after a healthy bribe and huge salary increase, quit the army and assumed a position as Cárdenas Guillén's bodyguard. But he proved more valuable than that, as Cárdenas Guillén recruited 30 more men from GAFE through him. The men called Guzmán Decena “Zeta,” because his old army code name was Z1. Soon the former GAFE men and the men they trained became known as “Los Zetas.” Their duties expanded to collecting debts, securing disputed territory and assassinating enemies. Their signature was to make their victims' bodies so grotesque as to add an extra level of terror among those who might think of crossing them. Their tactics and weapons made them a weapon the other cartels, and even the Mexican military, couldn't match.

But Cárdenas Guillén also made a big mistake. In November 1999, a vehicle carrying a Gulf Cartel informant and a number of DEA and FBI agents was stopped and surrounded by Cárdenas Guillén and his men. Despite being apprehended, assaulted and threatened by having an immense number of AK-47s and AR-15s pointed at them, the Americans refused to surrender or hand the man over. Eventually they were allowed to leave as their abductors apparently decided against antagonizing the U.S. government any further.

This made Cárdenas Guillén an enemy of the United States, and on March 14, 2003, a Mexican Army unit acting on American intelligence surrounded his home and arrested him. The Gulf Cartel fell into some disarray after that. Cárdenas Guillén attempted to run things from prison via cell phone, but real leadership fell to his lieutenants, older brother Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillén and childhood friend Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez. Without Cardenas Guillén in control—and with Guzmán Decena dead after an assassination at a restaurant in 2002—Los Zetas became less loyal and more militant, often making their own deals without the consent or knowledge of the Gulf Cartel.

With the Sinaloa and Beltrán Leyva Cartels moving in and the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas protecting their turf, a small war broke out. Automatic gunfire was heard frequently. Locals knew who the bad guys were and stayed as far away as possible. The media started calling Nuevo Laredo “Narco Laredo.” Radio journalist Raul S. Llamas told the BBC he stopped reporting on cartel violence after a friend and colleague was murdered for saying the wrong thing. Guzmán Loera upped the ante Colombian-style by paying for the school supplies and healthcare for poor people in the city. José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's drug czar, begged the media to let those people know that everything the cartels were giving people was the result of illegality and violence. “Help me make the people realize that this peso or this dollar that the drug trafficker gives is dripping in blood,” he asked.

A Federale chasing a Ford Expedition SUV that was speeding in Nuevo Laredo was killed by passengers firing AR-15 assault rifles. The gunmen then fled on foot. When the truck was searched, it was found to be bulletproof and contained four hand grenades, five more AR-15s, three MP5 submachine guns, two telescopes, 11 cell phones and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. In the past, Mexican and U.S. officials said, law enforcement officers probably would not have given chase to an expensive SUV with blacked-out windows, either out of fear or because they were on the drug cartels' payroll. Officials believe Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta (Tony Storm)” Cardenas Guillen, the brother of jailed cartel boss Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was a passenger in the SUV.

When the chief of the Nuevo Laredo police abandoned his post, attorney Alejandro Domínguez Coello was the only volunteer for the job. Seven hours after he was sworn into office, the father of three was surrounded by Chevrolet SUVs and shot to death. He was the fiftieth person and fourth police officer to be killed in the Nuevo Laredo war. Three days later, the Federales moved in and were fired upon by the local cops. Nobody was killed, but one Federale was critically injured. When the factions waged a firefight in front of the American consulate using assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the consul and his staff packed up and went home. The fact that the consulate left Nuevo Laredo was a shock to many Americans who had no idea how violent their neighbor to the south had become, since the fighting had not yet spilled over the border.

Fox was compelled to move. He sent in 800 army soldiers who detained all 700 members of the Nuevo Laredo police force and sent the 41 involved in the attack on the Federales to Mexico City for interrogation. Fox likened Nuevo Laredo to Chicago in the 1920s. He said it would take years of hard work and millions and millions of dollars to fix the problem.

One of Mexico's most popular singers, Valentin “El Gallo de Oro (the Golden Rooster)” Elizalde Valencia, gave a concert at an open-air festival in Reynosa, just across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas, on November 25. At it, he sang a
narcocorrida
about Guzmán Loera and began and ended his show with his song “A Mis Enemigos” (To My Enemies), which had become something of an unofficial anthem for the Sinaloa Cartel. No more than 20 minutes after he left the stage, his Chevrolet Suburban SUV was surrounded and filled with bullets fired from AR-15s and handguns. Elizalde, his manager Mario Mendoza and driver Raymundo Ballesteros were all killed. A fourth person, believed to be a woman, was injured but escaped before authorities arrived.

If there was any doubt who was responsible, it was erased the following week. A series of videos started appearing on YouTube—including Elizalde's official autopsy video—that claimed that Los Zetas were taking responsibility for the hit. The videos received millions of views and hundreds of comments, including unambiguous death threats between Sinaloa and Gulf supporters.

And that's how 2005 ended in Mexico. Millions of people were crossing the border into the United States, a huge number of them with backpacks full of marijuana, cocaine or methamphetamines. They were bringing back immense amounts of cash and heavy weapons. Fox was bragging about the 46,000 drug-related arrests that had happened under his watch, not to mention the destruction of many clandestine airports and poppy fields, but was also begging for patience and funding. The cartels had aligned into two warring factions—the Sinaloa, Beltrán Leyva and Juárez on one side were facing off against the Tijuana and Gulf—who were making billions of dollars, recruiting new staff, appeasing the locals with handouts and bribing or killing opponents at will. Los Zetas were gaining confidence and making their own deals. The DEA, FBI and Border Patrol were spoiling for a fight. And the country was called to vote once again in an election that would determine their very precarious future as a nation.

Chapter 6

Trouble in Paradise

The Mexican Drug War did not start in a vacuum. It wasn't simply the case of a federal government cracking down on drug traffickers—nothing in Mexico is ever that simple. Although people in North America have long joked about how corrupt Mexican police and officials were, few realized how entrenched corruption was in the culture until tourists started coming back in body bags.

Few places in the world are as welcoming and as naturally beautiful as the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo. On the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico, Quintana Roo offers beaches with warm transparent crystal blue water and fine white sand. Away from the beaches, you can tour Mayan temples and pyramids, try the exquisite Yucatáneco cuisine or buy authentic Mexican handicrafts. Since the 1980s, places like Cozumel and Cancún have become familiar vacation haunts for Americans and Canadians alike. Travel agents refer to it as the Mayan Riviera, and it is where Hernán Cortés landed in 1519.

Most North Americans acknowledge some level of danger when traveling to Mexico, but Quintana Roo has a well-developed tourist culture, as have many other destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The best beaches and other hotspots are surrounded by lavish hotels, restaurants and entertainment complexes that cater to North Americans and a few Western Europeans. Everyone speaks English, American dollars are accepted everywhere and on Sundays you can catch NFL games in every bar. They are safe and hospitable, designed to make the visitor feel comfortable, at home, as it were, when thousands of miles from home. The greatest fear for most travelers is “Montezuma's revenge”—diarrhea caused by improperly stored food. Outside of those zones—where few North American tourists venture—lie places we'd call things like “the Other Mexico” where the local population lives. In some tourist destinations—like many in the Dominican Republic—the dividing line is marked with a high fence topped with razor wire; but in most places, tourists rely on visual cues or advice from hotel employees and other locals who rely on tourist dollars.

Demons in Eden

By 2006, Quintana Roo had made the news as a haven for organized crime. Frequent reports of drug trafficking and subsequent money-laundering made little impact on North Americans—many of whom pay little attention to Mexican news—until a different, more lurid type of organized crime was uncovered. Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro wrote a book called
Los Demonios del Edén
(The Demons of Eden), in which she revealed a massive child pornography and prostitution ring operating in this idyllic setting.

The man she said was responsible for the criminal organization was Jean Succar Kuri, a Lebanese-born Mexican businessman who also has American citizenship. He moved to Cancún in the 1980s—just ahead of the tourist boom—with his 18-year-old second wife and set up a soda stand. Twenty years later, he owned four guest villas and a hotel on the strip and was worth about $30 million.

Using victims' official statements and following Succar Kuri around (often with a hidden camera and microphone) for months, Cacho's book served as compelling evidence that Succar Kuri was indeed the ringleader of a child exploitation ring that was worth millions. It also linked Kuri to politicians like Senator Emilio Gamboa Patrón and national Social Security and Social Services Institute general director Miguel Ángel Yunes, and named another Lebanese-born Mexican businessman, a Puebla-based textile manufacturer and noted high-stakes gambler named Kamel Nacif Borge, as aiding and protecting him. No charges were ever laid against Patrón, Yunes or Borge.

When the book came out, Nacif Borge, also known as the “El Zar de la Mezclilla” (the Czar of Denim), immediately sued Cacho for defamation. A few days later, Cacho was arrested in Cancún by Puebla state police and taken 900 miles away to the city of Puebla. They did not give her a subpoena or warrant or even a reason for her arrest. She was jailed briefly, paid a fine and was released.

On February 14, Mexico City-based daily
La Jornada
published transcripts of telephone conversations between Nacif Borge and Mario Marín Torres, the governor of Puebla. In them, Nacif Borge asks “mi góber precioso” (my precious guv') if he could arrange to have Cacho arrested and then beaten in jail.

At first, Marín Torres claimed the voice on the recording was not his and that although he knew Nacif Borges, they were not friends. Later, he admitted that it was his voice and they were close friends, but that the conversation was taken out of context.

Cacho sued Marín Torres in Mexico's Supreme Court for bribery, influence trafficking, conspiracy to rape and abuse of authority. She lost the case 6-4, leading
The New York Times
to call the surprise decision “a setback for journalistic freedom in Mexico.” The United Nations Human Rights Council advised Cacho to leave the country and offered her protection and a chance to be heard in an international court. She chose, instead, to stay in Mexico and is now researching the Juárez
maquillidora
murders. Succar Kuri was found guilty on a number of charges and was imprisoned first in Chandler, Arizona—where he was attacked by another inmate—then later Mexico.

Murder on the Mayan Riviera

Organized crime, child prostitution, corrupt police and elected officials were part of the Other Mexico, and stories like Cacho's did little to dissuade North Americans from coming to the Mayan Riviera.

In 2006, Liliana “Lily” Ianiero and Marco Facecchia were looking for a place to hold their wedding. They were from Woodbridge, Ontario, a decidedly upscale suburb of Toronto that is populated almost entirely by Italian-Canadians. As is the case with many families of Italian descent, the Ianiero-Facecchia wedding would be a lavish affair with many guests. Lily wanted it to be at an all-inclusive beach resort. Their wedding planner suggested Jamaica, but the couple thought it was too dangerous (Woodbridge is not far from some rough Toronto neighborhoods dominated by Jamaican gangs) so they decided on the Mayan Riviera. To be exact, they chose the 1,000-room Barcelo Maya Beach Resort located between Cancún and Playa del Carmen. And since safety was a concern, they were impressed that the huge complex was accessible only by one gate on one road and patroled by armed security guards 24/7. As is tradition, guests of the wedding had to make their own travel arrangements, but the bride's family paid $45,667 (Canadian) to accommodate the 16-member wedding party.

The wedding party flew down together on February 18, 2006, checked in at about 10:00 p.m. and rested. The next night, they had a party with some of the guests who had also arrived. At about 11:10 p.m., just as the party was moving to a resort nightclub, Captain Morgan's, the bride's parents—59-year-old realtor Domenico “Domenic” and his 55-year-old wife Annuziatta “Nancy” Ianiero—decided to go to sleep. Nancy said she was still tired from the flight and because they had gotten lost trying to find their room in the massive resort. Domenic joked that gout he had recently developed in his left foot would keep him off the dance floor anyway. He also mentioned that after they were lost the night before, they had flagged down a friendly uniformed security guard who had driven them to their room in an electric golf cart. Before the Ianieros left, they made plans to have breakfast with the groom's parents the next day. The two women agreed to check out the resort's gym before eating.

At 7:30 a.m. on February 22, Dora and Robert Facecchia knocked on the door of Room 4134 where the Ianieros were staying. No answer. Assuming that Domenic and Nancy had overslept, they went back to their own room and returned at 8:00. Again, there was no answer. They tried again and again, shouting through the door and calling them on their cell phone. A crowd of people, some in their group, alerted by the ruckus, gathered around them. Robert Facecchia asked a member of the housekeeping staff to let them in. When she refused, he insisted her manager do so. He complied at 8:20. Later testimony would show that the witnesses were immediately shocked by the colossal amount of blood, far too much for the carpet and the duvet thrown in front of the door to absorb. “The room was full of blood. I don't think there was anything left in them,” said a family member who arrived later.

They saw Nancy's body first. She was face down on the bedroom floor, her throat slashed from ear to ear. She had a Hudson's Bay credit card on top of her and her purse underneath. Domenic was found face up on the bathroom floor. His throat had been sliced open as well.

The family's screams alerted more people in neighboring rooms. Dora sent someone to tell Lily and Marco what had happened. Two women—Thunder Bay, Ontario, residents Cheryl Everall and Kimberly Kim, who were at the resort to attend a different wedding—had emerged from a room across and just down the hall from the Ianieros', and said that they had heard nothing until the commotion that had drawn them out. Other guests who arrived at the scene told the grieving family that they had heard glass breaking, crying and screaming, but didn't think it was anything that serious.

While all of this was happening, hotel housekeepers were hurriedly mopping up blood from the scene under management's orders. Some of the onlookers recorded them doing so on cell phone video cameras. Word spread and curious onlookers crowded the scene. Hotel security told the bewildered family that what they were doing, including cleaning and not sealing the area, was standard policy.

State police arrived at the scene 90 minutes later and acknowledged that some cleaning had been done before they arrived. They found a bloody trail from the Ianieros' room to the one across the hall that Everall and Kim had just checked out of at about 10:00 a.m. The two Canadian women had taken a taxi to the airport and flown back to Thunder Bay without incident. According to the Ianieros' son, the Quintana Roo coroner refused to examine or even remove the bodies until he was paid $7,000 to cover the costs of embalming and caskets. After he was paid, the Ianieros' remains were taken to Funerales del Caribe—which serves as a funeral home and a morgue—in Playa del Carmen in an unmarked white Chevy Tahoe SUV hearse. Just after a unit of Federales arrived on the scene, someone in hotel security sent an “all clear” message over the staff radios, and the crime scene was again inundated with staff and guests until the Federales could resecure the area. Much to the Canadians' surprise, the Mexican police did not take notes during their initial questioning instead relying on their memories.

For days, the families sat vigil in the hallway, while their room service requests for coffee and water were denied. A clerk handed a family member the Ianieros' personal belongings, which surprised them as they thought they should have been taken as evidence.

Noted Toronto magazine editor Scott Steele left the resort just hours before the bodies were discovered. “This was not the sort of place where you would expect something like this to happen. It seemed pretty safe and secure to me,” he said. “It was full of fairly well-heeled North American tourists, and was a compound of sorts. There were not even outsiders on the beach.”

He did notice a sizeable gulf between the staff and guests. “If robbery had been the motive, these are the sorts of places that locals might indeed try to target,” he said. “Despite the very high security.”

Quintana Roo Attorney General Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo told Mexican media that robbery was clearly not a motive for the killing because the Ianieros were still wearing their jewelry and had travelers' checks in their possession. He said that the primary suspects were two Canadians, noting that there was a trail of bloody footprints headed to their room. The Mexican authorities released two names, but due to the language barrier and poor record-keeping at the resort, they were misspelled and it was not clear if the names were of men or women.

• • •

Everall and Kim saw names similar to theirs mentioned in media accounts and reported to police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did extensive background checks on both women and found nothing out of the ordinary or remotely incriminating about them. Kim, a psychology student who worked part-time at a hospice, and Everall, a medical student who has since opened a family practice, didn't look like any kind of professional killers. The Thunder Bay police interviewed both of them, and 20 others who attended the wedding. Everall and Kim were not sure if they would be arrested or extradited to Mexico. “We're both mothers of small children,” said Everall. “We've been involved in our communities, in all ways, and I think for myself—and Kim can speak for herself—but the thought of being taken away from my children, I can't even imagine it. It's my worst nightmare.”

On February 24, Melchor Rodriguez y Carillo announced that he had the names and photos of two suspects and was searching for a third. He did not explain how he had obtained the names or photos—although other tourists at the Barcelo Maya reported that armed security guards were constantly taking pictures of guests—and said that media attention was compromising his investigation. He also said that the murders appeared to be assassinations, that the murderers were likely professionals and that it was likely that the Ianieros had enemies in organized crime in Canada.

The reaction in Canada—particularly in Toronto's fiercely pro-Canadian, often overwrought mainstream media—was huge. Pointing out that the murders were actually sloppy and that if the blood trail was anything more than the footprints of the housekeeper who began to clean up the blood before police arrived, as the family claimed it was, the hit was anything but professional. “Having their throats slashed does not mean it was a professional hit,” said Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto homicide detective and now the owner of a private investigation firm. “There are a lot of spontaneous murders and crimes of passion where people have their throats cut. Most professional hits are done with guns. If they're professional, they must be brand new at it, because they haven't covered their tracks very well.” The local papers carried lots of personal stories, focusing on what a delightful couple the Ianieros were and how they told each other “I love you” at least once a day.