Gangland by Jerry Langton

Author:Jerry Langton
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2013-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Carnage in 2009

The Mexican government decided to wait until after New Year's Day 2009 to announce two huge arrests that had been made the previous week. The first was the latest corrupt official caught up in Operation Clean Up: SIEDO determined that army major Arturo González Rodríguez, who had once been part of President Calderón's personal security detail, had been receiving $100,000 a month for providing weapons to and coordinating military-style training for Los Zetas.

His arrest, and the admission by Secretary of Defense Guillermo Galván Galván that at least 100,000 Mexican soldiers had switched sides and gone to work for the cartels for higher pay, led many to criticize the military and its role in the war on drug trafficking. Even the most ardent critics had to admit, however, that the war had reached a scale at which intervention by the military was inevitable. “The participation by [the military] is necessary because there is a threat and harm to national security,” said Guillermo Velasco Arzac, spokesperson for Mejor Sociedad, Mejor Gobierno (Better Society, Better Government), a citizen's rights advocacy group that had been highly critical of Calderón in the past. “It's known that many of the successes have come from the work done by military intelligence and investigation.”

The other major arrest was that of Alberto “La Fresa” (the Strawberry) Espinoza Barrón, a high-ranking lieutenant in La Familia. Acting on an anonymous tip (many Mexicans believe it was a former La Familia member who had switched sides to Los Zetas), a special forces unit of the army surrounded his home on December 29, 2008, and he surrendered without a shot fired. Despite La Familia's vehement denials of involvement in the grenade attack in Morelia, it was among the many charges leveled at Espinoza Barrón. From his home and vehicles, police confiscated three AR-15s, an AK-47, 37 ammunition clips, six pistols, five fragmentation grenades and four plastic bags containing marijuana and crack cocaine. They also found a list of 150 “workers” he was to have paid that day.

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