From Amparos to Threats: The Battle to Extradite Los Zetas Leaders to the U.S.

About a decade has passed since the brothers Miguel Angel and Omar Treviño Morales were apprehended after being identified as leaders of a ruthless criminal group that generated violence in various parts of the country.

During the first ten years of the 2000s, eastern Mexico suffered the ravages of the expansion of what is considered the most bloodthirsty and violent criminal organization that has ever operated in the country: Los Zetas.

Although its origin dates back to the late nineties when Osiel Cárdenas Guillén recruited elite soldiers from the Mexican Army to form his own armed wing within the Gulf Cartel, over the years the power that this paramilitary group achieved led them to become independent and operate on their own.

During this process, the surnames Treviño Morales began to gain relevance in the country’s underworld. And beyond their extensive criminal portfolio, it was the brutal violence with which the leaders of Los Zetas operated that consolidated two brothers as the most feared criminal leaders in the country.

“Unlike other criminal groups, the Zetas didn’t buy alliances, but instead terrorized their enemies. They tortured their victims, hung corpses, and killed indiscriminately […] The Zetas preferred to take control of territory in a military style, holding it by force and exploiting their criminal opportunities. Although their military training diluted over time, their brutality did not,” describes an InSight Crime report on the cartel of the last Alphabetic letter.

With Miguel Ángel and Omar Treviño Morales at the helm, the criminal organization managed to expand from Tamaulipas to Nuevo León, Coahuila, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Zacatecas, Puebla, Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo.

In addition to drug trafficking, in the territories where Los Zetas were present they coordinated criminal activities such as kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, robbery, operation of bars and black market businesses, prostitution, drug dealing, illegal exploitation of natural resources, fuel theft, among others.

With these precedents, the operatives Z40 and Z42 became priority targets not only for Mexican authorities but also for the United States, a circumstance that led to their eventual arrest.

The arrest of the leaders of Los Zetas

Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, alias El Z40, was the first to fall. In July 2013, a high-ranking officer of the Mexican Army announced that the leader of the cartel of the last alphabetic letter had been arrested while traveling in a truck approximately 27 kilometers from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

At the time, the US government was offering a reward of up to five million dollars for anyone who provided information relevant to his capture.

Almost two years later, in March 2015, Omar Treviño Morales was arrested in San Pedro Garza García in Nuevo León, one of the country’s highest socioeconomic locations. The arrest of Z42 was also worth five million dollars to the US government.

In both cases, the neighboring country’s government formally requested their extradition after filing charges against them for crimes such as participating in an ongoing criminal organization, drug trafficking conspiracy, possession and use of firearms, and an international money laundering conspiracy.

Despite their profile and extensive criminal portfolio, more than a decade after their respective arrests, Miguel Angel and Omar Treviño Morales continue to wage an uphill legal battle against their extradition to the United States, a process in which the judiciary has played a key role.

Federal Judges and the Extradition of the Treviño Morales Brothers

The extradition process in Mexico is based on two laws: the penal codes based on the crimes and the extradition law. According to the explanation presented by prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero during the traditional morning conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum, it is the second regulation that establishes that the requesting State is the one that presents the corresponding request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) or its counterpart in any country.

If the analysis carried out by the receiving agency is appropriate, it communicates it to the corresponding prosecutors or attorneys so that the entire procedure can be carried out and the arrest warrant can be established and requested. It is impossible to extradite someone who does not have this requirement.

This process, established in the Extradition Law, cannot last more than 45 days, a time limit that in the case of the leaders of Los Zetas, is far exceeded.

“We have cases that are eleven years old, it is the most ridiculous and disproportionate thing you can imagine. In the case of Z40 and Z42, it is eight and eleven years that they have been delaying the hearings and the whole argument is that they say that they are not them, that they are others, when we have all the procedures with the photographs, with the data and with everything,” said the head of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) on the case of the Treviño Morales brothers.

“We can act in accordance with the law, we have no problem with extraditions but converting the right to protection, which is a defense against the abuse of authority, into an abuse of authority, that is truly ridiculous,” said prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero.

Threats and arguments: the brakes on extradition

In January 2024, intelligence sources revealed to journalist Gaspar Vela for MILENIO that the brothers Miguel Ángel and Omar Treviño Morales had managed to delay their extradition to the United States through a strategy of intimidating the judges who are handling their cases because, although they are detained, they continue to operate and maintain their power.

The information coincides with an accusation filed in the District of Columbia in the United States, which maintains that both Z40 and Z42 continue to lead various illicit activities no longer under the seal of Los Zetas but of the Cartel del Noreste, the successor criminal organization.

“The Department of Justice is committed to holding cartel leaders like those charged accountable for poisoning American communities and fueling violence here and abroad. We are also committed to working with our domestic and international colleagues in this effort, and we are grateful to our law enforcement partners in Mexico for their continued collaboration in this case,” said Principal Deputy Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

Although U.S. authorities have emphasized the importance of extraditing the leaders of Los Zetas, in Mexico the situation for judges is even more delicate. According to sources consulted by Gaspar Vela for MILENIO, the Treviño Morales brothers are behind the murder of at least ten guards from the different prisons in which they have been held, a fate that federal judges fear if they authorize the extradition of the criminal leaders to the United States. 

In February 2024, in a reply exercise, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales sent a letter to MILENIO in which he claimed not to be the leader of Los Zetas, in addition to emphasizing that in 2019 he was acquitted of the accusation against him for the crime of organized crime.

In the courts, Treviño Morales argued that he is not the person referred to by protected witnesses but that there is a homonym or similar name that has damaged his image and the name of his family. Additionally, he denied that there is any complaint against him for threats or bribes to judges to avoid his extradition to the United States.

The extradition of the Treviño Morales brothers continues to navigate in uncertainty and awaiting a resolution that yields to the arguments of their legal defenders or that, on the contrary, finalizes once and for all their extradition to the United States.

Source: Milenio