Mexico Nabs Gulf Cartel Boss The Latest Coup by the Country's Navy Is Likely to Intensify the Turf War With Rival Zetas
From The Wall Street Journal
By JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA
MEXICO CITY-"Mexico scored its biggest blow against the country's powerful drug gangs in two years by capturing the alleged boss of the Gulf Cartel,
once one of the country's most dominant groups but now weakened by a bloody turf battle with rival gangs.
Jorge Costilla, known as "El Coss," was paraded before reporters in Mexico City on Thursday, a day after his capture along with five other alleged
drug traffickers in the port city of Tampico on Mexico's violent border state of Tamaulipas.
Navy Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said the beefy and mustachioed Mr. Costilla didn't put up any resistance in the operation, carried out by 30 marines. It
was the second capture of a Gulf Cartel chief in a month. Last week, the Navy captured Mario Cárdenas, known as "Fatso," also in Tamaulipas.
The capture of Mr. Costilla, a former policeman, leaves the Gulf Cartel, which once had undisputed control of drug routes to the U.S. along Mexico's
Gulf Coast, without its top leader.
But the cartel, which traffics mostly in cocaine and marijuana, has been bled by a brutal turf war with the Zetas, a rival cartel composed of former
Gulf Cartel enforcers who broke with their one time employers in 2010.
"The arrest of Jorge Costilla leaves leaderless the Gulf Cartel, and could be a debacle for the group," said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an expert on
the state of Tamaulipas at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
The capture was the latest feather in the cap for Mexico's Navy, a far smaller outfit than the country's army but the branch of Mexico's armed
services that works most closely with the U.S.
The Navy was also responsible for the 2009 killing of Arturo Beltrán Leyva, the head of a major crime group. A year later, it killed Antonio Cárdenas,
known as "Tony Tormenta," then head of the Gulf Cartel.
"The Navy/Marines pull off yet another successful operation thanks to careful planning, accurate intelligence and cooperation with allies," said
George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary, in an email.
Despite the blow, the cartel has deep ties with Tamaulipas's local political and economic establishment and could easily regenerate itself, said
Carlos Flores, an expert on drug trafficking and Tamaulipas at CIESAS, an academic research center in Mexico City.
The cartel had its beginnings decades ago as an organization which smuggled electric appliances and other goods into Mexico when the country had a
protected economy. Cartel leaders have had close relations with Tamaulipas's power structure ever since, Mr. Flores said.
Mr. Costilla's detention could lead to greater violence in the state as the Zetas take advantage of the capture to press their fight against the Gulf
Cartel, going after its strongholds in Tampico and Matamoros, Ms. Correa-Cabrera and Mr. Flores said.
More than 60,000 people have died since outgoing President Felipe Calderón sent out army troops and federal police to reclaim large areas of Mexico
under the control of the Gulf Cartel and other organized crime groups.
While Mr. Calderón's campaign has been successful in killing or capturing many of the leaders of the different groups, in many cases this has led to
increased violence as the groups have splintered amid struggles for succession.
In Tamaulipas, drug-related murders soared to 1,209 in 2010 from 90 in 2009 after the turf war broke out between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas.
Since then, the Gulf Cartel has allied itself with the Sinaloa Cartel, which is the country's most powerful crime organization, led by Joaquín "El
Chapo" Guzmán, in an attempt to destroy the Zetas.
In recent months, much of the drug violence has been centered in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. Mostly under Zeta control, Nuevo
Laredo faces an onslaught from the Sinaloa cartel.
"El Chapo emerges as the big winner, because of the further weakening of the divided Gulf Cartel, beset by recent captures," said Mr. Grayson.
Alberto Islas, a Mexico City-based security expert, said he expects Mr. Costilla will be extradited to the U.S., where he has twice been indicted on a
charge of drug trafficking.
Mr. Costilla could be a fount of information about corruption at both the state and federal level in Tamaulipas, a bastion of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Mr. Islas said.
The PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto won July's presidential election in Mexico and will be sworn in as president in December.
In 2006, the FBI put out wanted posters of Mr. Costilla, wearing a white cowboy hat, and offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his
capture. Mexico also had a $3 million reward for Mr. Costilla's capture."
[Edited on 9-15-2012 by Gypsy Jan]
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\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
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