The Battle At Topo Chico Ended Los Zetas. They Lost The Plazas And The Cells

The place where Jorge Iván Hernández Cantú lives is a mess. It is 2016 and every night the table is dusted with cocaine, bottles of whiskey are spilled, women who charge by the hour come in and out and narco ballads are played at full volume that echo off the walls: the king-size bed, the improvised jacuzzi, the 50-inch screen, a painting of Scarface and the altar to Santa Muerte. Nothing unusual for the home of a powerful boss, except for one detail: it is inside the Topo Chico Prison in Monterrey, Nuevo León.

From Monday to Monday, the first floor of “Dormitory C” dormitory becomes a nightclub that operates from noon until dawn. But one day in December 2015 the music resonates louder. The volume knob is at maximum and the woofers of the sound system vibrate as if they were going to break. No one in the prison can ignore those corridos that praise the Gulf Cartel.

But Jorge Iván, nicknamed El Credo, is only interested in having one person in particular listen to him: Juan Pedro Salvador Saldívar Farías, a mortal enemy for being a prominent member of Los Zetas who has recently been transferred to this prison in the Sultana del Norte.

The voice of singer Beto Quintanilla serves as Credo’s warning to El Z-27 that he is stepping on occupied territory. The Gulf Cartel has been the administrator of the Topo Chico Prison for at least five years and has turned it into a thriving business: everything that is sold, rented, enters or leaves here pays taxes, and the hitmen move as they please. And those privileges are not going to change sides with the arrival of any “Zetón” no matter how ambitious he may be.

Laughter comes out from Credo’s lair as the songs change. Shouts, cheers, mockery. El Z-27 takes note of the insult and from that scandalous night plans his revenge, which not only includes the head of his old enemy, but the taking of the prison.

He doesn’t know it yet, but his anger will put an end to his criminal group. The Zetas, infamous in Mexico and around the world for their brutal executions, once the largest cartel in Mexico, will become extinct.

The fearsome era of the ‘numerical operatives’

Seven years before former President Felipe Calderón militarized public security by declaring a “war on drugs,” the Gulf Cartel did the same with organized crime by creating Los Zetas as its armed guard.

The then leader of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, called on elite military officers who had deserted the National Defense Secretariat to provide protection for them, as well as for the top brass and their businesses. In December 1999, in a hotel restaurant in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, the ten closest to him swore loyalty and handed out the first codes inspired by the “zeta blue” color of the uniforms of Mexican Army officers. Arturo Decena called himself El Z-1; Alejandro Lucio Morales Betancourt, El Z-2; Heriberto Lazcano, El Z-3, and so on.

With the cry “Kill, God forgives!” the fearsome era of the “numerical operatives” was inaugurated, according to Ricardo Raphael’s story in Son of War (2019).

The Zetas quickly became known for their brutality. They mixed the punishments learned in the military with the initiations from American barracks, such as Fort Hood, and added the torture that the Kaibiles had to endure. Thus they created their own methods of pressure. The incipient social networks and the front pages of the media were filled with throat-cuttings, dismemberments or decapitations that, until then, had only been committed by terrorist groups in the Middle East. Mexico had not yet experienced this horror. 

Blood became another form of pornography and terror became the trademark of this criminal group. Once they had forged a reputation as barbarians, the Zetas began an aggressive expansion through the northeast of the country so that the Gulf Cartel would stop being a state group in Tamaulipas. In 2003 they arrived in Coahuila, according to analyst Jacobo Dayán, and in 2004 they arrived in Nuevo León, according to Simón Vargas. With that trio of states under their military boot, Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel were preparing to expand.

Locating themselves in states with powerful economies was a tragedy for the country. The then director of the Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen), Guillermo Valdés, noted that Los Zetas changed the criminal model in Mexico, since they added to drug trafficking the extraction of society’s assets through kidnapping and the right to conduct business They not only militarized crime, they diversified it.

And they applied their own method. “The Zeta yoke,” as academic Sergio Aguayo called it. First, they infiltrated state and municipal police forces. Then, they extorted businessmen, silenced the media and imposed their agenda through hyper-publicized murders and silent massacres. And then they co-opted all economic activity: from slot machines in grocery stores and junkyards in the outskirts to casinos, horse races, stripper clubs and gas stations in the wealthiest areas.

An emporium of organized crime

With that strategy, Los Zetas fought against the Sinaloa Cartel in La Laguna, turning that metropolitan region into a clandestine grave. They also entered Monterrey, killing indiscriminately. They created a franchise system and thus inaugurated cells that stretched from Baja California to Chiapas to create the feeling that no corner of Mexico was safe from them. And when they metastasized, they expanded beyond the borders, becoming partners of gangsters in Central America, drug traffickers in South America, and mobsters in Europe, like the Italian ‘Ndrangheta.

By 2010, Los Zetas were all over the country, outnumbering Osiel Cárdenas Guillén’s people in town squares. Drunk with power, they decided to take the next step: no longer being the armed guard of others, but establishing themselves as their own group. The emancipation of Los Zetas.

The “numerical operatives” became independent with one certainty in mind: their criminal mark was bigger than that of their creators. The Zetas had managed to become synonymous with brutality and irrational violence inside and outside of Mexico. Their mere enunciation made entire towns tremble. They sowed fear and harvested surrenders. At the same time, they provoked widespread rejection for their murders against civilians and cruel methods.

In 2006, the Zetas murdered musical idol Valentín Elizalde; a year later, they tortured and executed infantry captain Jacinto Granada. In 2008, they threw three fragmentation grenades into the crowd celebrating Mexicos Independencia in Morelia, Michoacán, thus beginning the era of “narco terrorism.” And the following year, they murdered journalist Eliseo Barrón, shot up the newspaper El Siglo de Torreón, and their crazy streak of disappearances led to the founding of “Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos” in Coahuila, with the support of the Catholic Church.

Their violence had triggered homicides: Mexico counted 9,921 murders in 2005 and, five years later, the number had already reached 25,757. Clandestine graves appeared. Words like “enmaletado” (stashed inside a suitcase} or “tableado” (flogged) sprang up. And each video of atrocious torture became a challenge to the Armed Forces. The situation was unsustainable.

The former director of Cisen stated in the study “Reconquistando la Laguna”, prepared by El Colegio de México in 2020, that the government realized that it could not win the war. There were many open fronts. Too many enemies at the same time. They had to concentrate on one, the most violent one. “As a result, we changed the objective […] and decided to go against Los Zetas,” admits Valdés.

The official story maintains that the State decided to pursue them with all its might. Other experts, such as journalist José Reveles, claim that the then federal Secretary of Public Security —Genaro García Luna, now imprisoned and sentenced to 38 years for colluding with organized crime— allied himself with the Sinaloa Cartel to jointly finish off Los Zetas. They would be described by Barack Obama as “a global threat.”

Los Zetas responded in the only way they knew: with more violence. In August 2010, they massacred 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, and carried out the killing of 17 people at the Quinta Italia Inn in Torreón. The following year, they murdered some 300 people in Allende, Coahuila, killed 53 with the burning of the Casino Royale in Monterrey, and killed the American agent Jaime Zapata.

They even interfered with one of the sacred activities of Mexicans: soccer. In August 2011, live and through the cameras of TV Azteca, the country saw how hundreds of fans protected themselves from stray bullets during a shootout outside the Santos team stadium in Torreón, Coahuila. Not even in the stands could one be safe from Los Zetas. The government’s counterattack intensified.

This was the Mexican government’s offensive

“The objective was not to [dismantle] the organization. The strategy was to go from the bottom up, grabbing the stakes […], [which would reduce] the organization’s capacities for violence and operation, preferably arresting the accountants who had computers with a lot of information about the protection network, about the local leaders and about the regional leaders,” Valdés summarized in a round table at El Colegio de México in 2020. 

The operations quickly yielded results. Their supporters in local police were arrested, their black market businesses closed, their properties seized. By 2012, Z-1 had been killed; Z-2, arrested; Z-3 killed by federal forces; Z-4, apprehended. Others, such as Z-7 or Z-14, were out of action. Even anti-drug agents in Texas spread the rumor that any drug trafficker arrested on U.S. soil with cocaine from the Sinaloa Cartel wouldn’t be “bothered,” but if “merchandise” came from Los Zetas, they would go straight to prison.

In 2013, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, Z-40, leader of the group, was arrested. And two years later, his brother Omar, Z-42, suffered the same fate. Monte Alejandro Rubido, National Security Commissioner in the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, celebrated this arrest in March 2015 with a forceful phrase that summed up the success of the mission: “Los Zetas can disappear.”

Cornered in prisons, Los Zetas only had their presence in the cells left. From there they thought they could regain strength and retake the power they had lost. Until a bad strategy in the Topo Chico prison had the opposite effect.

The deadliest prison riot of Los Zetas

Only Z-27 knows how long it takes to plan revenge. The dates suggest that it will take him between two and three weeks to gather his warriors and tell them the strategy to avenge the insult of that noisy party and take over the prison. In silence he decides the day and time to execute the plan: Wednesday, February 10, 2016, at 11:30 p.m.

It is crucial to win the battle. The presence of Los Zetas has weakened in the streets and the prisons have become their last bastion of power. From there they organized massacres, hid leaders, dissolved corpses and even homemade armor for their “monstuos” or war tanks. But since the federal government approved the closure of the prisons in the cities of Gómez Palacio and Piedras Negras to take power away from organized crime, Topo Chico is the last thing they have left.

So, Z-27 and his accomplices waited for the appointed time and opened the doors to advance towards “Ambulatory C”, the Credo gang. As soon as they arrive, they brandish the knives they have hidden from the guards: sharp points made from toothbrushes, razors, screwdrivers, kitchen knives and machetes. The members of the Gulf Cartel respond with hammers, steel bars, punishment boards and baseball bats.

A guard activates the alert button. He knows he is facing a losing battle: in the conflict area there are only three guards against some 300 armed inmates. And in the rest of the prison there are only 49 guards for 3,984 inmates. Containing this mob is impossible, so the security personnel decide to mitigate the damage: they wait for the arrival of the Civil Force and let them kill each other, while they take care of the 480 women and children who live in the prison.

The “Dormitory C” becomes a slaughterhouse. On the two levels and its 16 cells the inmates are falling: decapitated, stabbed, beaten. Almost all with deep contusions on the skull, according to the opinion of the National Commission of Human Rights. Their bodies were abandoned in toilets, showers and even in the tortilla shop in the area.

Someone starts a bonfire in Sections 2, 3 and the food warehouse. The fire consumes sheets, clothes, televisions and refrigerators. Some scream madly because of the blood of their adversaries, others because of the burns and others beg not to be hit anymore, that they aren’t part of the fight.

By the early morning of February 11, Fuerza Civil and the Federal Police regain control of the prison. The death toll is 49 and 12 seriously injured. Among the survivors are two: an almost unharmed Credo and an injured Z-27, who have stayed away from the riot so that others could put their bodies there. This will be known, the next day, as the deadliest prison riot in the history of Mexico.

The Zetas lost their plazas and their cells.

The failure of the mission has an impact on the morale of Los Zetas. Not even an elaborate plan can displace the Gulf Cartel, which is growing in influence inside and outside the prison. They have lost their prison cells and their jails. The reputation for ruthlessness they had built up no longer has the same impact. And they hear rumors that, after the failed revolt, the government plans to close the prison and will split them up throughout the country. So they fragment. 

The allies of the Treviño brothers – Z-40 and Z-42 – choose Juan Francisco Treviño Morales, El Kiko, as their new leader, who christens his faction the Cartel del Noreste. Others prefer to follow in the footsteps of the old deserting soldiers and call themselves La Vieja Escuela. And others, the youngest, call themselves Sangre Nueva. Reform or die.

None of them have the national presence that Los Zetas once had. Today, the Cartel del Noreste and its armed wing La Tropa del Infierno are present, by far, in eight states of the country, according to 2022 data from the National Defense Secretariat. La Vieja Escuela retains a few pockets of power in the Huasteca region and Sangre Nueva survives in Veracruz and Puebla. From time to time they use the name Los Zetas. Is it nostalgia for a power they lost and will not return? 

The Topo Chico Prison closed on September 30, 2019. Its walls fell and demolished the last bastion of Los Zetas. Now, the lair that Jorge Iván inhabited is a public park known as Parque Libertad.

Source: Milenio