Feds target Zeta cartel’s laundered ‘hobby’ money in U.S.
By Jason Buch and Guillermo Contreras
The Zetas drug cartel is marching north, not with a legion of hit men, but with a hoard of dollar bills.
In a string of prosecutions in Texas over the last year, federal prosecutors have tried to show that the gang of mercenaries-turned-mobsters laundered more than $80 million in legitimate U.S. industries.
Front men for the Zetas invested in restaurants and oil and gas companies, purchased property and aircraft and laundered millions of dollars in the U.S. quarter horse industry, according to court records. To facilitate their money-laundering and drug-smuggling, cartel operatives paid bribes in the U.S. to law enforcement officials and members of private industry.
In the only case to go to trial so far, prosecutors in Austin spent three weeks detailing the quarter horse operation, which the cartel used from 2008 to 2012 to launder at least $60 million by sending dirty money to straw buyers in the U.S. who would purchase horses and transfer them to the gang’s most-trusted front man, a brother of the Zetas kingpin. Drugs, bribery
A jury on Thursday convicted José Treviño Morales, brother of Zetas leader Miguel Treviño Morales, and three other men in Austin. Miguel Treviño, who goes by the radio call sign “El 40,” and his brother Omar, who goes by the radio call sign “El 42,” laundered not only drug money, but the proceeds of bribery and extortion as well, the trial showed.
Prosecutors in San Antonio and Brownsville have charged two other men they say ran separate money-laundering operations for the gang involving real estate and other businesses. Those cases are still open.
The Zetas are known across Mexico for their brutality — one witness in the Austin trial said he’d killed 30 people and another said the Zetas killed hundreds after suspecting they had been betrayed to law enforcement — and the gang has killed people north of the Rio Grande, but law enforcement officials in recent prosecutions have concentrated on what they say is the corrupting influence of the gang’s money.
“There’s a lot to talk about the impact — maybe a kidnapping or a murder — but you also got to consider the monetary flow, because that is what is the lifeblood of these groups,” said Alonzo Peña, the former deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gang’s operations
The trial in Austin gave an overview of the Zetas’ operations, as they moved from hired guns for the Gulf Cartel in the early 2000s to a traditional criminal enterprise making most of its money from drug trafficking, but has delved into bidrigging, race-fixing and extortion. Their presence in the quarter horse industry was an open secret, one witness said.
In a news conference after Thursday’s verdicts, U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman acknowledged that the investigators and prosecutors on the ground “had some persuading to do” before they were allowed to pursue the case against José Treviño.
And while law enforce- ment officials involved in the case said taking down José Treviño’s $60 million laundering operation is largely symbolic for a criminal organization that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, taking their favored horses, close confidants and the leader’s brother will be a sore loss to the Zetas.
The people who handle their money are the Zetas leaders’ most-trusted associates, he said, and putting them in prison hurts the gang. The U.S. government also hit the Zetas where it hurts: their favorite pastime, said True Brown, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in San Antonio.
“The monetary losses might not impact the overall operations of the Zetas in Mexico, but what we took away is their profits, their hobby,” Brown said. “It’s a major, major blow to 40 and 42.” jbuch@express-news.net gcontreras@express-news. net