http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/033008dninttrainingcamps.1836949.htmlDrug cartels operate training camps near Texas border just inside Mexico
CAMARGO, Mexico – The ranch near this border community is isolated, desolate and laced by arroyos – an ideal place, experts say, for training drug cartel assassins.
Mexican drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps in at least six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states, some within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who were trained in the camps.
The camps near the Texas border and at other locations in Mexico are used to train cartel recruits – ranging from Mexican army deserters to American teenagers – who then carry out killings and other cartel assignments on both sides of the border, authorities say.
Cartel training camps copy pattern set by international terrorists
"Traffickers go to great lengths to prepare themselves for battle," said a senior U.S. anti-narcotics official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Part of that preparation is live firing ranges and combat training courses. ... And that's not something that we have seen before."
Many of the camps are temporary, used for a time and then abandoned or used intermittently. Others are hidden on private land behind locked gates and have more permanent facilities, the officials said.
The land is seldom held in the name of known cartel members but is usually purchased through someone fronting for a cartel, authorities said. Sometimes "mobile" training camps are conducted on private land without the owner's consent.
The camps include locations in Mexico's interior, but U.S. law enforcement officials said they are acutely concerned about those along the 1,000-mile-long Texas-Mexico border – another example of the escalating drug war among feuding cartels.
In Texas, Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores said he and other law enforcement officials are "doing everything we can to secure our borders with limited resources."
"We know through intelligence sources that narco-traffickers invest money in Mexican nationals and U.S. citizens in training camps to instruct them in the black art of assassination and terror," he said. "It's even more shocking to hear that they even have mobile training sites because they take loads of money to set up."
In the state of Tamaulipas, for example, the Zetas – paramilitary enforcers of the Gulf cartel – train with other mercenaries, including the Kaibiles from Guatemala, the officials said.
The testimony of the five protected witnesses is in documents from the Mexico attorney general's office obtained by The Dallas Morning News . Fernando Castillo, the spokesman for the attorney general's office, confirmed the authenticity of the documents and said the report of six training camp locations in two states abutting Texas was "about right."
"We're not talking about Marine-style or al-Qaeda-type training camps," Mr. Castillo said Friday. "These are more informal places used for target shooting and for physical exercising."
According to the printed testimony, the training has taken place at locations southwest of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville; near the town of Abasolo, between Matamoros and Ciudad Victoria; just north of the Nuevo Laredo airport; and at a place called "Rancho Las Amarillas" near a rural community, China, that is close to the Nuevo León-Tamaulipas border.
Two other ranches used as training camps, both east of Matamoros, have clandestine landing strips for cocaine shipments originating in Colombia and destined for the United States via Texas, according to the officials and testimony.
Mr. Castillo described Rancho Las Amarillas as a more sophisticated operation than the others and said Mexican authorities seized the ranch in 2002. The ranch manager, Eduardo Salvador López, was sentenced Feb. 23 to 20 years in prison for drug crimes.
Mr. Castillo added: "When we know there is a training camp, we seized them and shut them down. But because they're often mobile and often temporary, we can't do much about them."
Two Mexican soldiers stationed in Reynosa, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the camps are sometimes heavily fortified.
"In some cases, they're better armed than we are," one soldier said of the cartel members. "They can bring down a plane."
A former senior Mexican intelligence official said that the use of training camps has become "standard practice" for the cartels. "Yes, there are training camps where hitmen from both sides of the border train with weapons from the United States," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
'Hundreds' of soldiers
There is no firm estimate of the number of people who have received training in the camps, but a U.S. intelligence official said the number was in the "hundreds" across Mexico.
It's all part of a strategy by drug cartels to intimidate their enemies and assert control over besieged communities along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, the officials said. The result has been unprecedented violence – at least 5,000 people killed nationwide in two years – and ongoing brutal confrontations with local, state and federal forces.
"The Zetas paramilitarized the situation with training camps and military background," said a senior U.S. law enforcement official and weapons specialist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They turned battles into a prolonged war."
In small towns along the Texas-Tamaulipas border, the Zetas operate with seeming impunity, driving late-model SUVs and carrying gold-plated rifles. Roadside altars are appearing that pay tribute to "Santa Muerte," the Saint of Death, adorned with candles and Grim Reaper figurines. Residents regard them as a sign of cartel activity.
According to the witness testimony and interviews with U.S. and Mexican officials, training in the camps may range from a few weeks to months, and trainees have included American teenagers.
One of them is Rosalio Reta, 18, who was sentenced last year to 40 years in prison for a murder in Laredo. Mr. Reta's career as a cartel hitman began at age 13, he told investigators. Authorities say he may have been involved in as many as 30 execution-style murders in the U.S. and Mexico.
Last year, Mr. Reta gave Laredo police Detective Roberto García an account of how he and other high school-age boys were trained as teenage hitmen for the Zetas. Mr. Reta told Laredo authorities he spent months training under Mateo Díaz López, "Comandante Teo," an alleged top Zeta member arrested last year in the state of Tabasco on drug and weapons charges.
Mr. Reta's confession led to the discovery of three clandestine cells in Laredo, allegedly carrying out assignments for reputed cartel leader Miguel Treviño.
"I know we're fighting terrorism throughout the world ... but here along the border the narco-terrorists operate on both sides of the border, and so far it's gone largely unnoticed by Washington," said Webb County Assistant District Attorney Jesús Guillén, who prosecuted Mr. Reta.
Life at the ranch
According to the printed testimony, Rancho Las Amarillas was under the control of reputed Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
Mr. Cárdenas has been extradited to the U.S. and is awaiting trial in Houston on 17 counts of importing and distribution of drugs, as well as three charges of threatening a U.S. federal agent and one of money laundering. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Mr. Cárdenas used the ranch to raise cattle as well as to train his personal militia, many of them former army soldiers lured by promises of higher pay, according to the testimony. Pay started at about $300 a week but would double within six months – far higher than salaries for soldiers or police. Pay for hitmen and bodyguards began at $1,000 per week, according to testimony.
In September 2001, Mr. Cárdenas, a former federal police officer, began ordering new recruits lured from Mexican special forces units to the ranch for advanced training, according to the testimony.
"That course lasted two months," according to the testimony of one protected witness, who said he worked for Zeta leader Arturo Guzmán Decena. "From that point on, the Zetas, numbering more than 50, began to engage in larger operations."
Mr. Guzmán was later killed in a battle with the Mexican army in Matamoros. Today, the number of "hardcore" Zeta members is more than 300, according to an internal Mexican military intelligence report.
The training is extensive and includes the use of such weapons as AK-47 assault rifles, AR-15s, grenade launchers and .50-caliber machine guns, according to the testimony and U.S. officials.
And the training can be deadly. In September 2002, Zeta member Omar Bautista Hernández drowned during an exercise that required him to swim with his backpack and high-powered weapon, according to the testimony.
The camps serve other purposes. In his confession, Mr. Reta told Detective García that the ranches are used as execution sites, where cartel members dispose of their enemies.
In one incident, according to testimony, the bodies of four Nuevo Laredo police officers were set on fire inside barrels filled with diesel fuel. The remains were buried there the next day.
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