Criminal cooperation

The Gulf Cartel recruited the Zetas in the 1990s to help muscle its way into a highly competitive Mexican drug market.

But over the past three years, the paramilitary organization - made up of former special operations soldiers and rural street thugs - has grown in stature, engaged in independent criminal endeavors and has become an equal partner in the business once dominated by its creator.

• Click here for more information on the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel

An uneasy truce now exists in smuggling corridors from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros, according to recently unsealed court documents.

An indictment in a federal case against the leadership of both groups describes for the first time the hierarchy between the two, who refer to themselves collectively as "The Company."

The document paints a picture of two organizations that have grown more independent of each other in their smuggling activities while continuing to work together to maintain control over Southeast Texas' valuable trafficking routes.

Combined, their efforts are believed responsible for tons of cocaine and marijuana entering the United States and millions of dollars moving out of the country between 2006 and 2008, according to figures cited in the indictment.

"The Company control(s) hundreds of miles of Mexican territory along the ... border of Mexico and Texas," it reads. The enterprise's members have "carried out various acts of violence against Mexican law enforcement officers and rival drug traffickers to retaliate against and to intimidate (anyone) who interfered" with the organization's trafficking activities.

POWER STRUGGLE

Rumors of a split between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas have circulated for years. But the indictment - handed down by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. - lays out an unusually detailed description of how the new power-sharing arrangement developed in northern Tamaulipas.

The extradition of alleged former Gulf Cartel chief Osiel Cárdenas Guillén from Mexico in 2006 set off a leadership crisis within the organization. Cárdenas was arrested in Matamoros in 2003 but was believed to have run the criminal organization from his Mexican prison cell. He is now awaiting trial in Houston on multiple counts of conspiracy, drug trafficking and threatening a U.S. federal agent.

In Cárdenas' absence, three leaders have emerged to helm the drug trafficking organization, the June 9 indictment states.

His brother - Antonio Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cárdenas Guillén , 47 - took the reins after his sibling's arrest along with fellow cartel leader 37-year-old Jorge Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sánchez, federal investigators say.

Zeta commander Heriberto "Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano, 34 - a founding member of the paramilitary group believed to be one of its most violent members - also took on a prominent role.

LOOSE COOPERATION

Charging documents portray the loose cooperation that developed among the three as largely a matter of convenience. Each continues to operate within his own sphere - Lazcano coordinating drug shipments primarily with other Zetas, while Antonio Cárdenas and Costilla stick with alleged Gulf members.

But the triumvirate comes together to decide matters ranging from payments owed to plaza bosses to the price The Company will charge for its drugs, U.S. federal authorities say.

In some cases, both the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas maintain overlapping hierarchies in the same smuggling corridors. The now-captured Zeta Jaime "El Hummer" González Durán once controlled a swath of territory stretching from the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, through Miguel Alemán, and into Reynosa. His jurisdiction placed him firmly in the backyard of an equivalent Gulf Cartel plaza head, according to the indictment.

But the ability of the two groups to work side-by-side has at times been threatened.

Court documents describe an October 2007 incident in the coastal city of Altamira, Tamps., in which Costilla, Lazcano and other top leaders were expecting a 13-ton shipment of cocaine from Colombian suppliers. Mexican authorities seized the drugs, causing some Zeta members to question their partners' trustworthiness.

One alleged co-conspirator reportedly told the others that they had "72 hours to pay the money they owed (for the drugs) or they would be killed," the indictment reads.

AT LARGE

Nineteen top leaders of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas and the conglomerate Company are named in the June 9 indictment. They each face charges of conspiracy, cocaine distribution and aiding and abetting drug trafficking.

Among their ranks, at least four - including González Durán, the former head of Zeta operations in Reynosa - remain in Mexican federal custody. One - the alleged former head of Gulf Cartel operations in Rio Bravo - is currently being held by U.S. authorities. The rest remain at large.

Federal prosecutors have previously stated that the charges would pave the way for extradition to the United States and prosecution should these leaders be captured here or in Mexico.

If convicted, each man could face up to life in U.S. federal prison.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.