Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers (33 page)

In May 2002 Los Zetas executed El Chacho, along with his deputy. Having fulfilled his promise, El Barbas asked a further favor of Osiel Cárdenas: that a young man by the name of Edgar Valdez Villareal should be allowed to operate in Nuevo Laredo, in place of El Chacho. Contrary to expectations, Cárdenas accepted. Los Zetas were not too happy with their boss’s arrangement. They smelled a rat. But military discipline won the day: “Orders are to be obeyed, not questioned or altered,” say the Zetas.
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The paramilitaries had a good sense of smell. The odor of betrayal was perceptible in advance, like that of rain before it falls. In November 2002, Z1 was shot dead in a restaurant in Matamoros. Every year his friends and family leave flowers outside the place where he was killed, to show that there is no forgetting. After Guzmán Decena’s death, Heriberto Lazcano, The Executioner, was anointed head of Los Zetas. As the Gulf Cartel was regrouping, its enemies seized their chance. On March 15, 2003, Osiel Cárdenas was captured by Mexican army forces and the PGR in Matamoros, after a birthday party for one of his daughters.
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A fortnight later, in the name of The Federation, Edgar Valdez, or La Barbie as he became known, sent a friendly warning to El Verdugo: “You have one week to vacate the territory from Reynosa to Nuevo Laredo.” The narco war had been declared. And the Mexican government has been a part of it ever since. Not as an independent authority or even arbiter, but as an active combatant on one of the sides—that of El Chapo.

La Barbie

They say that for the peg to fit it must be carved from the same wood. Arturo Beltrán took the measure of the enemy facing him, and for that reason sent his secret weapon to Tamaulipas. The secret weapon was Edgar Valdez Villareal, La Barbie or La Muñeca (The Doll). Valdez was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1973, a year before El Verdugo. He looks harmless but is just as violent and bloodthirsty as the Zetas leader. Both belong to a new generation of traffickers, with different codes and a different approach to the business.

If his mother hadn’t made his childhood so unhappy, the story of his life might have been different. He has told friends how painful he finds it to remember her alcoholism. For a time she abandoned him completely. He began to cause problems at home as a pre-teen, when he got involved in Laredo’s youth gangs. To avoid prison he went to Mexico. There he was taken in by a couple in Zapopan, Jalisco. They are the only family he recognizes.

In 2001, Valdez was recruited by El Barbas. He earned his place in the drug hierarchy through a brawl in a bar. It is said he had a violent fight with one of the cartel’s hired killers—whose identity he didn’t know at the time—over a woman. He gave the hit man such a beating that the latter’s boss, instead of killing him, went after him and offered him a job. First it was as a bouncer, then as a gunman. La Barbie developed a close friendship with El Barbas, who by 2002 had sent him to Nuevo León and Tamaulipas as a Federation rep. He was a born killer, and became the organization’s chief assassin. Valdez commanded three armed detachments founded specifically to fight the Gulf Cartel and its Zetas armed wing: Los Negros, Los Chacho
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, and the Mexican Mafia.
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In the absence of Guatemalan Kaibiles, in 2004 La Barbie recruited gang members from the Mara Salvatrucha, with its origins in El Salvador. This was discovered because in some of the executions carried out by Los Zetas against The Federation there began to appear corpses with tattoos similar to those used by the Maras.

Since 1998, Valdez has been wanted in the United States on charges brought in the southern district of Texas. However, although he
traveled frequently to the US, he was never arrested. This may be why many people thought that he might have been a DEA plant.

La Barbie is a man with a caustic sense of humor. He speaks little and tends to mumble, because of a problem with his jaw. To avoid capture when leaving his hideout, he used many disguises, some of them reputedly bordering on the comical. He is rebellious by nature and although he worked for Arturo Beltrán Leyva, he never felt he was anyone’s property.

He is also fascinated by the world of show business, and often frequented the glitzy bars and discos of Mexico City, Acapulco, and Cuernavaca in the company of stars. His ego is so big that his lawyer—who later became a protected witness for the Mexican state under the codename Jennifer
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—told how the hit man ordered a film to be made of his life with the actor Sergio Mayer, son-in-law of businessman Jaime Camil, who has also been linked to drug trafficking.

The alleged biopic was complacently titled Brazo Armado (Armed Wing). In spite of this information, the PGR never issued an arrest warrant for the powerful businessman’s son-in-law—even though much lesser allegations by Jennifer have put several public officials behind bars.

La Barbie was a useful, as well as lethal, weapon.

Sergio Villarreal, El Grande

In the new circle of people closest to Arturo Beltrán Leyva there was another man who was key for the war against the Gulf Cartel: Sergio Villareal, also known as El Grande (The Great). His height and breadth justified the name, and so did his cruelty. He was born in Coahuila state on September 21, 1969. His sister-in-law’s family is closely connected to President Calderón, something that has never been properly explained.

Unlike his bosses, El Grande got as far as the second year of a law degree. Like many policemen in Mexico, he ended up hiring himself out to the drug lords. He was in the Judicial Police in his home state, then in the Federal Police and finally was recruited by the Juárez Cartel and the Carrillo Fuentes family. In the year 2000 he began to work directly under Arturo Beltrán Leyva. To begin with he
organized drug trafficking in Coahuila and Durango. The results were so good for The Federation that his jurisdiction was soon expanded to include the states of Morelos, Guerrero, Puebla, Quintana Roo, and the Federal District. In the last of these he took charge of the organization’s operations at the International Airport of Mexico City. He managed units of enforcers and drug distributors like “Los M.” He was known for the severity with which he imposed discipline, and for the methods he used to collect debts.

However, despite the skills of La Barbie and El Grande, and the weakening of the Gulf Cartel after the capture of Osiel Cárdenas, in 2003 the members of The Federation realized they needed a more specialized body to confront their rivals. They had men in arms who were ready to waste anything that moved, but these could never match the levels of training, discipline, and technical skills of Los Zetas, much less their
esprit de corps
. Guzmán’s organization couldn’t wage war on the Gulf Cartel on its own. To have a good chance of victory, it needed extra help. Help from someone who enjoyed total freedom of movement and complete impunity.

El Chapo’s army

Just when he most needed it, Guzmán got the chance to meet the heads of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), whose director was Genaro García Luna. It happened in 2003, when supposedly four senior AFI commanders arrested El Chapo Guzmán in the state of Nayarit, where he had his base. They were Luis Cárdenas Palomino, director general of police investigations, Javier Garza, director of special operations, Igor Labastida, director of federal investigations, and Domingo González, director of the Control Center. It seems these close aides to García Luna let El Chapo go, in exchange for a few millions of dollars.
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Contact had been made: the relationship just needed time to develop.

In the 1980s and 90s, this group of AFI commanders had worked together as something of a brotherhood in the Federal District Attorney’s Office (PGDF). Other senior figures in the AFI were also part of this set, and they too had been “Judases,” as the judicial policemen are popularly known in Mexico. They more than justified the
nickname. All had a long trail of ill-repute, which followed them to the PJF when García Luna invited them to join him.

At the end of 2001, García Luna succeeded in changing the name of the Federal Judicial Police (PJF) to the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI). But he never managed to change its poor reputation, largely because of the rogue group of police chiefs who made up his inner circle.

Once at the AFI, the group led by Luis Cárdenas Palomino was joined by other officers recruited by García Luna, with whom they had much in common. Some came from the intelligence service, Cisen, or the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Others were recommended directly. Some were already in the force, and got promoted when García Luna took over. That is how Facundo Rosas and Víctor Gerardo Garay, among others, joined the unholy band.

In some government offices, this group became known as The Mega Cartel. The police chiefs could count on the complicity of many of their subordinates, creating a chain of corruption that prevails to this day. All of these senior officials have been investigated for alleged involvement in a variety of crimes including murder, kidnap, rape, misuse of public funds, receiving illegal payments and, above all, providing protection to drug traffickers. They were the perfect fit for the private army El Chapo was looking for.

Such was the complicity between the AFI and El Chapo, that the latter is said to have been often seen in 2003 in Xicotepec de Juárez, Puebla state, dressed in AFI uniform. The drug lord wore this outfit in order to pass unnoticed, along with his bodyguards—many of whom really were federal agents.

From 2005, there is documentary evidence that the AFI began to operate fully as El Chapo’s army. They were his official armed wing, his group of hired kidnappers and killers. The agency not only arrested El Chapo’s enemies to order, while he was protected; they also formed death squads to capture, torture, and execute The Federation’s adversaries. In exchange, The Federation
—
via the Beltrán Leyva brothers, who administered the narco-payroll—delivered briefcases and egg boxes stuffed with dollars, making fortunes for the AFI chiefs overnight. The most patent and inexplicable wealth is that of García Luna himself.

All wars have a first great battle. For the narco war, it took place in Guerrero.

War in paradise

Early in 2005, the state of Guerrero was a powder keg. It only needed some crazies to light the match. And sadly, there’s always someone ready to make sure the party gets going. Fed up with his rivals’ incursions into Gulf Cartel territory, Heriberto Lazcano decided on an invasion of his own, into Guerrero state, which for decades had belonged to members of The Federation. He began with Acapulco and Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. Lazcano the Executioner was at that time under the orders of Ezequiel Cárdenas—brother of Osiel—and Eduardo Costilla, El Coss. From his operational center in Valle Hermoso, Lazcano organized a posse of twenty armed men to go after La Barbie, the Beltrán Leyva brothers, and one of the armed groups protecting them, known as Los Pelones. His order was to kill them all.
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It seemed like a suicide mission. This would not be easy, even for Los Zetas. First, they had to locate the enemy. Then they would have to watch their movements, identify the places they most visited and the vehicles they used. To smoke them out of their lairs, they had orders to kill policemen, toss grenades, and blow up the sales outlets, storehouses, and dives run by The Federation, which in Guerrero was represented by the Beltrán Leyvas.

Part of the commando unit went to Acapulco, the other to Ixtapa. The party was scheduled to start in Ixtapa on the night of May 14, 2005, and the fireworks would be for real. El Pollo, one of the leaders of Lazcano’s men, called his comrade, José Lara, La Parca, to tell him to bring some grenades to a discotheque. La Parca went along with another member of the group, El Cascanueces. When he called El Pollo to tell him he was there, the voice that answered sounded strange.

“Where are you?” demanded El Pollo.

“Right outside.”

“Wait there, I’ll be right out,” said El Pollo.

A few seconds later, he called back.

“What are you wearing? I can’t see you.”

La Parca got a bad feeling. He told El Cascanueces that they needed to get out of there fast. As they walked along the coast road, they were spotted by some men in pickup trucks, who began talking into
their radios. The two Zetas took a taxi to the house where they were staying. They’d only been there a few minutes when several AFI and other vehicles surrounded the place, reinforced by officers of the Municipal Police. The Beltrán Leyvas didn’t have to lift a finger. That’s what they paid the commanders of the AFI for: to do the dirty work.

La Parca and El Cascanueces escaped onto the roof, jumped down, tripped, scrambled up again, and kept running. As they fled they broke into a house where a man was sleeping. They saw his phone and grabbed it to call two other comrades, Tachavo and El Karin. Only the latter answered, distraught: they were screwed, he shouted, the AFI had already captured El Pollo, El Moto, and two more. He told them to lay low and the next day take the bus to Acapulco, where they would regroup. Just then, the sleeper woke up and saw them. Whether because of their guns, or out of simple charity, he hid them, and in the morning he drove them to the bus station himself.

Throughout the night, AFI agents had been raiding hotels and houses in Ixtapa and Acapulco where the Zetas had been staying. Since they’d already captured El Pollo and El Moto, they’d been able to use very persuasive means to find out where their colleagues were.

That Sunday, May 15, a beach in Acapulco served as the meeting point for what was left of the group of Zetas. There were only six of them: La Parca, El Cascanueces, Pompín, Karin, Tachavo and Cuije. As well as El Pollo and El Moto, the AFI had captured Peterete, El Cascarrabias, and El Ojos. As an extra, they’d seized Juan Manuel Vizcarra, El Pizcacha, who had nothing to do with the operation. He just happened to be in Acapulco on holiday with his wife, Norma, and their two year-old daughter, who were also captured by the federal agents. It was a very delicate situation. It’s one thing for groups of hit men to tear each other apart, but quite another to hurt innocent family members. In those days, for Los Zetas, the family was still regarded as sacred.