Plea deals defended

After the sentencing, the Zetas formally split from the Gulf cartel, a move that sparked one of the bloodiest periods in Mexico’s drug violence. Among the casualties: migrants from Mexico and Latin America. In 2010, Mexican authorities discovered the bodies of 72 migrants killed by the Zetas, who apparently suspected them of being recruits for the Gulf cartel.

Months later, the Zetas intercepted several more buses with migrants on board and kidnapped some, turning some into hitmen and executing 193 at a ranch near San Fernando.

Weeks after the casino fire in Monterrey killed 52 in August 2011, authorities discovered 49 decapitated bodies along a highway.

Relatives and friends grieved for one of 72 people, mostly Central American migrants, whom the Zetas abducted from a bus and massacred in 2010 in Tamaulipas state. (File Photo/The Associated Press) Familiares y amigos lloran por uno de los 72 muertos, la mayoría migrantes centroamericanos, que fueron secuestrados de un autobús y masacrados por los zetas en el 2010 en Tamaulipas. (File Photo/The Associated Press)

A fire set by the Zetas in August 2011 at Casino Royale in Monterrey, Mexico, killed 52 people. Weeks later, 49 decapitated bodies were found along a highway. (File Photo/Agence France-Presse) Una nube de humo sale del Casino Royale, en Monterrey. El ataque perpetrado por los Zetas en agosto de 2011 dejó 52 personas muertas. (File Photo/Agence France-Presse)

“You have internal fights; you have power grabs between organizations and within organizations,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the U.S. “The consequence is violence and more violence because new leadership seeks to assert itself, and it is fighting for control of those organizations.”

Some U.S. officials defend the U.S. approach to battling cartels and deny that it heightened bloodshed. They blame Mexico’s corruption and weak rule of law and say that the mayhem would have been even worse if the U.S. hadn’t assisted its armed forces.

They also defend plea deals, asset forfeitures and informants as a necessary evil in dismantling cartels and investigating organized crime in general.

“Sure you can criticize the approach; it’s not without its shortcomings,” said Tony Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2002 to 2009. “But don’t you think if there was a perfect way of taking these groups out, it would have been tried? As long as Mexico’s rule of law is weak, that cycle is going to repeat itself.”

Arturo Fontes, a former FBI agent who had a key role in carrying out U.S. anti-drug strategy in the Laredo area, put it this way: “These organizations, Zetas and the Gulf cartel, would have taken several years to disrupt, but when a cartel is divided, fighting against each other, that helps the governments come in and pick up the scraps. … Our strategy was simple: divide and conquer.”

But some experts question whether a plea agreement for such a notorious drug kingpin is good policy.

“A reduced sentence for someone like Osiel [Cárdenas], who contributed to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people, may not be worth it,” said Eric Olson, a specialist on organized crime at the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson Center.

Olson said U.S. prosecutors don’t take into account the rights of victims in other countries. A U.S. prosecutor, for example, might agree to a reduced sentence for a drug trafficker involved in the deaths of many Mexicans to get information about a drug ring in Dallas, Olson said.

“Is this fair to the Mexican victims? Probably not, but the system isn’t set up to take that into account,” he said.

Mexico’s strategy, with backing from the U.S., has been to target the cartels by killing or arresting the top leaders, an approach that experts say has contributed to the climate of lawlessness and violence. This same approach, sometimes referred to as the kingpin strategy, brought down the mafia in the U.S. in the 1960s and drug cartels in Colombia in the 1990s, experts say. But it comes with a price.

“The flaw in the kingpin strategy is that at the end of the day you’re only creating vacuums, and when that happens, all and any vacuums inevitably get filled,” said Sarukhan, the former Mexican ambassador.

Garza, the former U.S. ambassador, conceded that the approach could be messy.

“Look, every time you take out a kingpin you create a void, a moment when succession and control of the ‘plaza’ are in play,” he said. “And that means there will be blood, and often lots of it, but what’s the alternative? Casting your lot with the kingpins?”

Today, violence in some parts of Mexico has ebbed, though cities like Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo remain largely under the control of the Zetas and remnants of the Gulf cartel.

Defeating the cartels, however, has proved elusive. Regions of Mexico remain gripped by fear and violence, as the number of criminal groups has skyrocketed from about five major cartels in the mid-2000s to an estimated 80 smaller criminal groups today, according to Mexico’s attorney general’s office. And the killings continue, with dozens reported in recent weeks along the Tamaulipas-Texas border.

Even in regions where the violence has ebbed, new threats have emerged. The conflict today isn’t just about illicit drugs, but also extortion rackets, kidnappings, migrant smuggling and piracy. Criminal groups now routinely tap gasoline pipelines and intercept fuel trucks, siphoning off millions of dollars in stolen gasoline each year.

A hit in Southlake

Guerrero Chapa allegedly was allowed to move large quantities of drugs from Mexico to the U.S. while under the watchful eye of his U.S. handlers — all while keeping a low profile at his new home in Southlake, according to confidential court documents.