Last night, Tuesday June 30, three videos were posted at YouTube by the shadowy paramilitary, Mata Zetas–”Kill Zetas”–in which six alleged Zetas “confess” to various crimes.
I posted on this group yesterday before the videos were released.
It appears the videos were made in or near Veracruz–because, according to federal police, that’s where three of the men in the videos were found executed, their bodies wrapped in black plastic and appended with notes from Mata Zetas claiming responsibility.
All three videos, in Spanish, appear below. The first is a written statement from Mata Zetas, followed by thte interrogation of the six Zetas by someone off-camera.
In that video, a Cuban-Mexican Ivan “El Tigre” Blanco confesses to smuggling Cubans and Chinese into Mexico–”bringing chicks in from the island”, was how Blanco put it. He goes to say the Zetas chared undocumented Cubans $400US to come through Cancun on their way to the US border. The Chinese were hit with a $6000US fee to come in to Mexico by way of Italy. According to Blanco, Los Zetas split the money with Mexican federal agents. This would confirm the Zetas/Cuban connections revealed last year.
Other alleged Zetas in the video confessed to laundering Zetas money through Veracruz businesses with compliance of state officials and hijacking railway shipments.
These videos may be scrubbed from YouTube at some point, so there may be a limited shelf-life for viewing. Note the weapons the black uniformed Mata Zetas brandish–the fellow on the far right is toting a grenade launcher.
With these videos, the suspicion increases that Mata Zetas is cover for a covert op out of the Mexican military, but doesn’t eliminate the possiblity that this paramilitary emanates from another cartel–the faith-based La Familia Michoacana or Guzman’s Sinaloa crew. That Mata Zetas is a whole new creature unto itself, is doubtful given how effectively and swiftly they are operating on multiple levels–tactically and strategically.
I will post further on the Cuban connection–later. In the meantime, I would appreciate comments, especially from any readers in Mexico.
3 Comments
January 6, 2010 at 10:00 am
i live in the us and even here we felt this situation in Mexico through a relative that was sequestered. i noticed that in one of the interrogation videos the unknown interrogator responds with the word “ok”. not a very common word used in slang or every day use out there . American?
January 6, 2010 at 10:06 am
Yes. That appears to be the case–
January 14, 2010 at 6:53 am
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