The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail

by Óscar Martínez

In Tabasco, which marks the beginning of Zetas’ turf in Mexico, you can ...

Los Zetas always keeping watch.

Los Zetas are like a metastasizing cancer. Migrants are recruited. Soldiers are recruited. Policemen, mayors, businessmen—they’re all liable to become part of the web.

Los Zetas find out about most operations even before the military. They have ears all over the place.

For over a half hour we’d talked to and questioned someone who is possibly a Zeta. This is what enables them to do whatever they want. This is how they know of almost every undercover operation planned against them. This is how they almost always know the who, the when, and the where. This is why it’s hard to act or react on their turf. This is why our photographer, Toni Arnau, was only able to take out his camera for a minute. And this is why this agent moves so cautiously, because Los Zetas see everything.

This is a showcase of kidnappings. A tour through a town taken over by narcos, where there are plenty of landmarks, but instead of pointing out a café where someone famous once ate, we gawk at the business where the last kidnapping happened, or the block with the most recent murder.

When Los Zetas take over, they take over everything. They’ve monopolized crime—kidnappings, extortions, murder, drug trafficking, retail, pirated movies, migrant guides. These crimes are all part of the same enterprise, and whoever wants a job, any kind of job, has to somehow work for Los Zetas. “They control everything,” the agent explains, “every institution. Notice how so many of the kidnappings in Tenosique happen near the rails, right in front of the migrant trail. City and state officials know that one of them will die if they do so much as lift a finger. Better to keep quiet and take what Los Zetas pays them.”