World

Cartel Ran Its Own Death Camp Inside A Mexican Prison

Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Lott

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JP Carroll National Security & Foreign Affairs Reporter
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The Los Zetas cartel operated a death camp inside a Mexican prison for three years and butchered 150 people near the Texas border.

In a prison near Piedras Negras, Los Zetas, formerly the enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel, tortured people it had kidnapped for causing it trouble from 2009 to 2012. Unfortunately for Mexican authorities, there isn’t a whole lot of evidence because Los Zetas have been making people disappear for years, according to the investigation’s spokesman Wednesday.

The cartel sicarios, the Mexican term for hitmen, would cremate the bodies of victims in the prison and subsequently dispose of the ashes in the nearby Rio Bravo. Zetas sicarios would enter and leave the prison wearing fake police and military uniforms, according to spokesman José Juan Morales.

Cartel operatives also used the prison as a chop shop and tailor for military-style clothing. Five Zetas thugs that were part of the long-running operation were named by the authorities and caught, some were already in prison. Ten more people are being hunted down by Mexican authorities.

The Zetas cartel is made up of former Mexican special forces operatives. It is one of the largest and most murderous cartels in Mexico.

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