NUEVO LAREDO — The ongoing civil war within the Los Zetas drug cartel has resulted in the splintering of groups within the rival factions and more murders just yards from the Texas border.
As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, for more than 10 months two rival factions of the Los Zetas cartel have been fighting for control of lucrative drug distribution territories and drug trafficking routes. The raging violence has resulted in almost daily cases of beheadings, dismemberments, drive by shootings, gun battles and other violent acts.
One side of the war involves various groups calling themselves Carteles Unidos that allegedly include Grupo Bravo, Vieja Escuela Z, Talibanes and members of the Gulf Cartel. That group has been invading territories previously controlled by the faction that went by the name Cartel Del Noreste (CDN).
In the most recent development, a splinter from the CDN calling themselves “Los Renegados” or the Renegades has apparently switched sides. Over the weekend, members of the Renegades took to social media to boast the kidnapping and murder of a CDN gunman that had been working in the entrance to Nuevo Laredo near the highway that connects that city with the industrial hub of Monterrey, Nuevo León.
Also over the weekend, the rival cartel factions clashed near the city’s airport. Since that gun battle only involved cartel gunmen, Mexican authorities have not released any information as to the number of injured or dead.
Mexican authorities have confirmed that one gunman died in a separate shootout between cartel members and the Mexican military over the weekend. That gun battle took place when the Mexican military was patrolling the city’s western side and were ambushed, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government revealed. In addition to killing one gunman, authorities managed to arrest a second named Ruben Juarez Garcia.
A third shootout took place near the highway that connects Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey. While authorities did not provide any information on that clash morning commuters were stranded as military personnel searched gathered evidence at the scene. Various other gun battles have taken place over the weekend.
In Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, the CDN appears to have taken responsibility for the murder of a local street lever drug dealer named El Cuco.
In the early months of the struggle between the rival factions of the Los Zetas cartel, Ciudad Victoria is the city that saw the worst levels of violence despite the many assurances of safety made by the Mexican government.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “M.A. Navarro” from Ciudad Victoria.