The Zetas have many sides, but how and why the gang settled in Monterrey explains a lot about who they are and how they operate. December 20, The Zetas have many sides. The group is at once sophisticated and ruthless, coordinating multicaravan ambushes and sending hooligans to launch a wild assault on a police station. It has gang-bangers and Special Forces snipers on its payroll. It uses a sophisticated radio system and a machete in the same operation. It has a political platform that consists of shaking down the entire political class.
And it has the accounting system of a multinational company, but the uncanny ability to destroy its own sources of income. It is, in essence, more organism than organization. For this reason, we tend to see what we want to see when we look at them, even when we analyze the same event. Take the August 25, , afternoon assault on the Casino Royale in Monterrey.
When eight men piled in the casino in four cars with automatic weapons, gasoline and lighters, two seasoned security analysts saw entirely different things. To one analyst, the group was a sophisticated and well-trained shock unit. Then the gun truck sealed off the driveway. He marveled how various lookouts and vehicles cleared space near where the operation was taking place and wondered aloud how many more lookouts there were in the area.
However, another very experienced security analyst said the Monterrey arsonists were amateurs with little ability to restrain themselves. They left fingerprints everywhere. They were caught by the Nuevo Leon police. How sophisticated could you be if you let the Nuevo Leon police capture you? Amateurs or not, the results were the same: 52 dead, mostly middle-aged women who were trapped by the flames that engulfed the building in a matter of seconds.
But his case was just as confounding as the arson attack. How and why the Zetas settled in Monterrey goes a long way toward explaining who they are and how they operate. The group, as has been documented, was not always free to do what it pleased. It was part of a larger structure, one of many enforcer groups that was beholden to its boss, the Gulf Cartel.
