Two Mexicans Killed for Reporting Criminals on Social Web Sites

 

Two young people were murdered and their bodies left hanging off a pedestrian bridge in Nuevo Laredo, a border city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, for presumably using social-networking Web sites to report criminals. The bodies of the young man and young woman showed signs of torture, and motorists were the ones who spotted the bodies and called police. Officials, however, have not issued a statement about the killings. The young man was dressed in a polo shirt and shorts, while the young woman wore only shorts. Messages warning others not to use social-networking Web sites to report drug traffickers were left on each of the bodies. One of the messages was signed “Z,” a reference to Los Zetas, which operates along the border with the United States and is considered Mexico’s most violent drug cartel. The grisly discovery prompted a large deployment of the security forces around the bridge. Los Zetas has been battling an alliance of the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia drug cartels, known as the Nueva Federacion, for control of smuggling routes into the United States. The cartel has also been blamed for several massacres in recent years. Los Zetas has been accused of being behind the Aug. 23, 2010, massacre of 72 migrants, the majority of them from Latin America, at a ranch outside San Fernando, a city in Tamaulipas. The cartel has also been blamed for the massacre of 27 peasants in May at a ranch in Guatemala’s Peten province, which borders Mexico and Belize. The latest brutal incident occurred on Aug. 25, when suspected Zetas gunmen set fire to Monterrey’s Casino Royale, killing at least 52 gamblers and employees trapped inside, most of whom died of smoke inhalation. Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, known as “El Lazca,” deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, all members of an elite special operations unit, becoming the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel. After several years on the payroll of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent criminal organization, went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.