Texas Candidate Arrested After Threatening Fellow Democrat with ‘Zetas’ Cartel

A candidate for Maverick County judge in Eagle Pass, Texas, was arrested in connection with a threat he allegedly made claiming he would send a Mexican cartel against the county’s Democratic Party chairman. In the region where the threat was made, Los Zetas Cartel is responsible for hundreds of disappearances where victims from both sides of the border were kidnapped, murdered, and incinerated. 

This week, Maverick County Justice of the Peace David Castañeda issued an arrest warrant against Democratic candidate Rudy Bowles on the charge of making terroristic threats, Eagle Pass Texas News reported. Bowles turned himself in and has since been released on bond. The candidate was running a campaign calling out alleged corruption under the leadership of incumbent Maverick County Judge David Saucedo, who is also a Democrat. 

The threat appears to be related to a phone call and voicemail that Bowles made to Democratic Party Chair Luis Ruiz, asking about a list of judges for the precincts. In the phone call, Bowles is heard telling Ruiz that if he does not come up with the list in 30 minutes, he would call Los Zetas to have them look for him. “I don’t want to do that,”  he added.

While the phone call may have been in jest, in Eagle Pass and Mexico immediately to the south, the criminal organization known as Los Zetas is responsible for countless kidnappings, murders, and disappearances. To date, the name “Los Zetas” continues to spark terror in most of northern Mexico. 

In February 2016, Breitbart Texas revealed the results of a three-month investigation into how Los Zetas managed to incinerate more than 300 victims from the rural communities in northern Coahuila with complete impunity. The victims, which included women and children, were incinerated in 55-gallon drums and their ashes were thrown into rivers. The motive was a show of force after cartel leaders felt betrayed by some members and ordered the targeting of everyone related or somehow connected to those men. 

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon.  You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.