Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico
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The present analysis demonstrates that several groups, both national and foreign/transnational, have benefited directly or indirectly from Mexico’s current conflict involving the Zetas, similar TCOs, and the Mexican government. Among these groups are arms-producing companies; the international banking system (due to the billions of dollars that are laundered daily in the major banks of the world); the US border economy; the US border security/military-industrial complex; and several forms of corporate capital, particularly international oil and gas companies.
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reforms were accelerated after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and included privatization and free trade policies (or less government intervention in the economy). They had an impact on criminal syndicates, allowing them to diversify their activities and to operate more as modern transnational corporations with less centralized government control.
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In other words, a new militarized criminal organization brought with it the militarization of other criminal groups and the militarization of the security strategy in Mexico.
Carsten
This is actually an important point since people complain about the use of the military but the state was to a degree forced to do it by the militarization of the cartels
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The decline of the Zetas organization might have to do with a number of failures in its model of organized crime. According to Guerrero (2014a, par. 19), one of them was “the lack of family links that would add certainty and trust to the relationships between the top members of the organization.” Actually, this criminal organization resorted to violence as a way to spawn discipline and assure internal control. This generated tension among its members and instability in its leadership structures.
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the “indiscriminate use of violence”; “this engendered fear and limited the construction of a social base” that would support the group’s activities.
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the less violence there is in a trafficking or smuggling corridor, “the better that is for the business of the organized crime group that controls it. A lack of violence in a plaza is also a sign that it is under the uncontested control of a particular organization” (par.
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The Traditional TCO Model vs. the Zeta Model
Carsten
That violence is indiscriminate might not be true, it might be planned as a first phase effort to gain territory
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People like Fidel Herrera, former governor of Veracruz, and oil businessman Francisco Colorado—two key figures in Los Zetas’ 2013 money-laundering case—seem to have been actual decision makers who furthered the activities and businesses of this illegal transnational corporation.
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The Zetas found new markets and created subsidiaries that had never been part of traditional TCOs. The criminal group began to exercise some government functions that go beyond simply protecting its original business interests, related solely to drug trafficking.
Carsten
To say this is a new business is wrong. Mafias started out with protection rackets
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In order to diversify their revenue streams the Zetas also started to smuggle undocumented migrants, particularly along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, from Central America to Mexico’s northeastern border.
Carsten
This is another common mafia business.
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poor migrants, who are crossing Mexico without authorization. Sánchez Soler estimates that “at least eighteen thousand migrants are seized in Mexico each year.” Hence “if a third of their families pay a lowball ransom of four thousand dollars, that’s twenty-four million dollars, with minimal risk or labor”
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“By challenging the institutions commissioned with the safekeeping and enforcement of justice and order, and imposing their presence and acting amongst the population at large,” TCOs have been perceived by some as legitimate entities (Nava 2013, 17).
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The government “obstructs routes, pressures criminal groups, and captures the leaders. The beheading of these organizations causes internal wars for power, fragments the groups, and spreads out the violence.” Violence in Mexico is thus worsened by the direct involvement of the federal forces.
Carsten
The question though is what is the alternative
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Consequently, when the Mexican military was sent into the communities, civilians ran the risk of being targeted as the enemy. “Soldiers and officers responded too often with arbitrary arrests, personal agendas, corruption, extra judiciary executions, the use of torture, and excessive use of force”
Carsten
Yes and how is this different from what the police did
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Paramilitarization of TCOs and the government’s response to it shook up the social structure of Mexico.
Carsten
This seems to ignore the reason for using the military in the first place ... The high level of corruption within local and state police
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The Criminal Model of Paramilitarism in Mexico: Los Mata-Zetas
Carsten
The Zetas were the first of these geoups ... That fact seems to be completely ignored
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These groups gained the attention and support of the media, civil society, and government. The end result seems to be the government’s embrace of this self-defense model (Machuca 2014).
Carsten
This is BS ... The government never provided autonomy to the goups
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After a thorough analysis of more recent commonly accepted definitions of this term, we can conclude that Mexico’s so-called drug war was indeed a new or modern civil war, essentially moved by economic agendas.
Carsten
If this is a civil war then that would justify the government's use of the military
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The main actors in Mexico’s war were citizens organized within criminal syndicates who rebelled and fought against government forces or law enforcement agencies at the three levels of government (local, state, and federal).
Carsten
This makes it sound like there was no fighting between the cartels
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in this case it is the government that declared war, not the criminal groups who rebelled against the government with the aim of achieving a political or economic goal.
Carsten
This is bs the killings the creation of the zetas happened before the governmet declared war
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Mexican TCOs, inspired by the Zeta model, incorporated into their regular practices and combat strategy some key features that characterize Central American gangs and other paramilitary groups, particularly the Maras and Kaibiles.
Carsten
Maras and kabiles ... Those have zero in common
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The Zetas and Kaibiles were trained in counterinsurgency operations;
Carsten
The zetas were not
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In recent times irregular armed groups have used these new platforms with the aim of influencing national and inter national perception of the situation in Mexico and maybe to justify the government’s actions, especially the militarization of Mexico’s security strategy.
Carsten
And what about the cartels?
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TCOs utilized social media to communicate their achievements, send messages to the government, and terrorize society by displaying blood and death in a series of photos and videos.
Carsten
How about sending messages to the rivals?
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It is worth noting that during this cyberwar against drugs in Mexico censorship of social media has taken place for the most part in states where traditional media outlets were also silenced.
Carsten
How is this a cyberwar against dugs when the people killed adre civilians and the murderers are cartels?
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Anonymous may have been used or infiltrated by a government agency to test intelligence and counterintelligence operations through social media, while at the same time generating a sense of terror among the virtual community with the aim of justifying the militarization of the security strategy in Mexico.
Carsten
And this happened without anonymous going public ?
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This insecurity presented by VxT would justify the use of the armed forces as the preferred public security strategy in Tamaulipas. In other words, the militarization of the state seemed to be an adequate measure to regain the control of the territories that were under the control of organized crime.
Carsten
Was what they showed real or fake if it was real then does it matter who posted it?