72 murdered in Mexico; Zeta Cartel targeting migrants

The international press has been reporting the massacre of seventy two persons in the City of Victoria in Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is among the worst acts of violence by drug cartels. Soon after the bodies were found, two car explosions occurred; the first was in front of the offices of the Televisa network and the second in front of transit police offices. The prosecutor, Roberto Jaime Suarez, vanished on Wednesday after the bodies of the migrants were found. What bearing does this have with Belize? Many make their way to the United States via Mexico where the dangerous Zeta drug cartel is now preying on immigrants. News Five’s Jose Sanchez reports.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

Two bombings occurred in Mexico earlier this morning, one went off near a television station.  Since the smoke cleared, seventy-two bodies of executed persons were found in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas.  It could be the worst act of violence to be seen in Mexico’s drug war. Fifty-eight men and fourteen women, all migrant workers from across Central and South America were murdered on their way to the United States of America.  Human trafficking has become an additional income earner for the drug cartels who control northern towns that border the U.S. At a ranch, ninety miles south of the border with Texas, the victims were blindfolded and bound before being lined up against a wall and shot. Only one person survived the incident.

“This man arrived at a road block and told us of an execution of approximately seventy people by the Los Zetas. This man is now at a hospital in San Fernando receiving medical attention.”

Although he was shot in his neck, Ecuadorian national, Luis Alfredo Lala survived.  Lala paid human traffickers eleven thousand U.S. dollars for a journey that should have landed into the U.S. Badly wounded, Lala managed to escape and reach a marine checkpoint. The Mexican armed forces immediately zoned in on the ranch, where they were greeted with the firepower of the cartel.  The soldiers killed three gunmen and managed to arrest one.  Several of the gunmen escaped. The processing of the gruesome scene uncovered an arsenal of high powered rifles and automatic weapons.  Uniforms and cartel vehicles, were designed to give the appearance of the Mexican military.  The police believe that the act of genocide occurred because the migrants did not wish to give money to the Zeta Cartel. It is estimated that over twenty-eight thousand people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a war on drug trafficking in 2006.

wilber cuellar

It’s a dangerous situation especially for Belizeans who catch ‘States Fever.’  Thirty-five year old Wilber Cuellar is one such Belizean who has the fever. He has been deported six times from the U.S. and once from Canada.  Currently, he is stuck at a shelter in Northern Mexico.  The Associated Press quotes him as saying “We run from the military, the authorities, the police and now the criminals, the Zetas. We are just poor people, we’re just passing through. Why do they have to do this to us?  I’m not afraid. I’m prepared to die.  I’m tired of suffering in this world.” One does not need to visit Mexico to encounter the Zetas. It is believed that the Zeta cartel was linked to the grenade explosion at the home of the Comptroller of Customs, David Gibson.  And one casualty which bore the mark of the Zeta, was the September 2008 murder of Wilhelm Braun, who was gunned down in the Commercial Freezone at the border with Chetumal. Days after that murder, Zeta Cartel Member, Carlos Leon De Moctezuma was caught trying to get back into Mexico with a machine gun which was outfitted with a silencer. Belizeans travelling through Mexico are advised to be cautious. Reporing for News Five, Jose Sanchez.