McALLEN — The Gulf Cartel maintains its control of Tamaulipas with a strong hand and plenty of support from Mexican police, witnesses against one of the organization’s top leaders testified Thursday.

The men — all former smugglers who operated under cartel leadership in Reynosa — outlined a multifaceted and often violent business that produced narcotics like marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine in the Mexican interior, moved them to the country’s border region and then smuggled them to points of sale in Chicago, Atlanta, Florida and the Rio Grande Valley.

The cartel protects its low-level traffickers for a fee known as el piso, or the tax, they said.

But those that lose drugs or money along smuggling routes or attempt to strike out on their own pay another price — one often collected in blood.

At the center of it all, they told jurors, was the tax collector — Carlos Landín-Martinez.

“They own the area,” said Daniel Zamorano Marchant, a 51-year-old Chilean national and former drug smuggler. “You’re in danger if you work there and don’t pay the fee.”

Their testimony came during the fourth day of the government’s case against Landín-Martinez, a 52-year-old former Tamaulipas state police commander believed to have once been second-in-command of the cartel’s Reynosa operations.

As each man took the stand Thursday, they linked the man known as “El Puma” directly to the cartel’s operations and — in one case — its violent sense of justice.

“If you want to participate in illegal activity, you need to talk to the leader,” Zamorano said. “Otherwise, you could be kidnapped or killed.”

THE PLAZA

Throughout the early years of this decade, Landín-Martinez collected pisos across the Reynosa plaza — an area of business just south of the Upper Valley, said Zamorano, who once served as a fixer for American drug dealers looking to purchase cocaine and methamphetamine from the cartel.

And although another man — Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, also known as “El Goyo” — headed the organization there, Landín-Martinez allegedly served as his muscle.

Anyone with an interest in running drugs or illegal immigrants between Diaz Ordaz, south of Sullivan City, and Rio Bravo to the east, had to pay tribute to “El Puma,” Zamorano said.

Business was conducted in the back of dark SUVs with men armed with automatic weapons brought along for protection.

“It was common knowledge on the streets,” he said. “You don’t run around Reynosa with fully armed bodyguards if you’re not a cartel member.”

Mexican smugglers like Victor Manuel Mungia Sanchez alerted the cartel to loads of harvested marijuana or meth manufactured in dusty Michoacán labs, hoping to secure safe passage through the country’s interior.

Cooperation with the cartel ensured the smugglers would get el banderazo, or the green light, at military checkpoints along the way, he said.

BOUGHT PROTECTION

Along the smuggling routes, the cartel relies extensively on a network of bribed state and federal police officers for protection from the law, Zamorano said.

He testified Thursday that the organization pays rent to federal agents in Mexico City, who guarantee them a portion of the country’s northern border.

Once the bribes are disbursed, the cartel can move drugs through the region with impunity and contract with low-level traffickers to move narcotics into the United States.

Men known as las madrinas, often former officers themselves, coordinated the deals with Mexican officials, Zamorano said.

But that doesn’t mean police don’t occasionally dabble in active drug trading.

One former Rio Bravo municipal police officer has already testified that he smuggled drugs during his time on the force and accused Landín-Martinez of doing the same.

“The military are the only ones that aren’t corrupted,” Zamorano said.

PRICE TO PAY

The Gulf Cartel’s monetary influence diminishes once the drugs enter the United States, so the organization must rely on the threat of violence to keep its smugglers in line, the men said.

Antonio Parra Saenz learned that the hard way.

After Pharr police seized $2.5 million worth of cocaine from a Las Milpas stash house he was guarding, the 24-year-old Camargo native was kidnapped and held for 15 days in a Reynosa warehouse.

He testified Thursday that Landín-Martinez was one of his captors.

The men kept him blindfolded, denied him food and water, and beat him with wooden planks until they were convinced he hadn’t taken the drugs, he testified. At one point, one of his captors burned him with scissors held over a flame until their blades were red-hot.

“At night a person that worked for (Landín-Martinez) would get high on drugs and beat us through the night,” he said in Spanish. “The beating was always worse at night.”

Throughout his captivity, Parra testified, Landín-Martinez’s men tried to extort money from his family to pay for the missing narcotics, leaving him without funds for adequate medical attention once he was released.

“I still cannot sleep,” he said. “As soon as I close my eyes, I remember everything that happened to me.”

DAMNING EVIDENCE

The testimony presented Thursday offered some of the most damning evidence against Landín-Martinez since his trial began.

While previous witnesses said they knew of his alleged activity by reputation only, Zamorano, Mungia and Parra told jurors that they had each either met, organized deals with or had been kidnapped by the man known as “El Puma.”

Defense attorney Oscar R. Alvarez challenged their statements by asking each man whether he had ever heard anyone utter Landín-Martinez’s actual name in connection with drug smuggling.

But his prodding prompted an emotional exchange between prosecutor Patricia Cook Profit and Parra, the tortured smuggler.

“Is there any doubt in your mind that that man sitting over there is a drug trafficker?” she asked.

“No, there is no doubt,” he said.

Landín-Martinez and 13 co-defendants face multiple counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering specifically linked to criminal activity between January 2005 and January 2007.

He was arrested in July when a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent spotted him buying watermelon at an H.E.B. supermarket in McAllen.

Of the co-conspirators already in federal custody, seven have pleaded guilty to charges and are cooperating with federal prosecutors.

Landín-Martinez and another co-defendant, Luis Martinez-Robledo, have entered pleas of not guilty and are standing trial in proceedings expected to last through next week.

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