it's amazing that this hasn't made more press in the US. I know I won't be fishing the Mexico side anytime soon!

The Inside Story

Sorry, but I need real reporters not guys going on hunting trips, sitting aroung drinking beer and talking B.S.

yeah your right.. it's all BS. Seriously, get your head out of the sand. No need to apologize for your ignorance on the matter.

Friday, March 13, 2009
Police: U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel

LAREDO, Texas (CNN) -- Rosalio Reta sits at a table inside a Laredo Police Department interrogation room. A detective, sitting across the table, asks him how it all started.


Police say Gabriel Cardona confessed to working for a Mexican cartel and claimed it's moving into the U.S.

1 of 2 Reta, in Spanish street slang, describes his initiation as an assassin, at the age of 13, for the Mexican Gulf Cartel, one of the country's two major drug gangs.

"I thought I was Superman. I loved doing it, killing that first person," Reta says on the videotape obtained by CNN. "They tried to take the gun away, but it was like taking candy from kid."

Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a thee-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors. The third was arrested by Mexican authorities and stabbed to death in prison there three days later.

In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border.

CNN has also obtained detailed court records as well as several hours of police interrogation videos. The detective sitting across the table from Reta and Cardona in those sessions is Robert Garcia. He's a veteran of the Laredo Police Department and one of the few officers who has questioned the young men.

"One thing you wonder all the time: what made them this way?" Garcia told CNN. "They were just kids themselves, waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox, waiting around for the order to be given."

Over a nearly one-year period starting in June 2005, the border town of Laredo, Texas, saw a string of seven murders. At first glance, the violence looked like isolated, gangland-style killings. But investigators started suspecting something more sinister.

Then Noe Flores was gunned down in a clear case of mistaken identity. Investigators found a fingerprint on a cigarette box inside the suspected shooter's get-away car. That clue unraveled the chilling reality and led police to arrest Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta.

"There are sleeper cells in the U.S.," said Detective Garcia. "They're here, they're here in the United States."

The cases against Cardona and Reta -- both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder -- shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called "Los Zetas," a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They're considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. "Los Zetas" liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

As the teens became more immersed in the cartel lifestyle, their appearance changed. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Reta's face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of "Santa Muerte," the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.

"These organizations, these cartels, they function like a Fortune 500 company," Webb County, Texas, prosecutor Uriel Druker said. "We have to remember that the United States is the market they are trying to get to."

In Cardona's interrogation tape, there are clues that "Los Zetas" are reaching deeper and deeper into the United States. Cardona is asked, "Where else are the Zetas?" And Cardona responds, "I've heard in Dallas and Houston."

And that's why the cartel recruited these young Americans. Cardona and Reta could move freely and easily back and forth across the border with Mexico.

Just hours before they were arrested, federal authorities taped a phone conversation between them in which Cardona brags about killing 14-year-old Inez Villareal and his cousin, a Cardona rival.

Cardona laughs as he describes torturing the two boys and dumping their bodies in large metal drums filled with diesel fuel. He says he made "guiso," or stew, with their bodies.

As the call ends, Cardona says, "There are three left to kill, there are three left."

Well I can tell you this.......... I have a very good friend that lives in Edinburg, and his Grandparents live across the border in Reynosa. He has not been to see them in almost a year. It's not just a bunch of drunks talkin smack believe me. There is A LOT happening from Reynosa to Laredo that is NOT being discussed openly or through the media. I used to go to Reynosa about 4-5 times a year and it's been over a year since I last went. The last time we were there I saw enough. Dead bodies floating in the Canals and so many Mexican Soldiers and Armored Vehicles it made me uncomfortable enough to decide I hadn't lost anything down there yet and don't plan on it any time soon.................



Rob

So very accurate and dead on !!

Debra

Very twisted and scary stuff.

I thought it was extremly interesting that at the checkpoint all i did is roll down my window. He said hello, are you a us citizen. I told him yes and rolled through. The drug dogs never even got up. I had a huge boat cover in the back of my tahoe which i later thought probably would look suspicous. They never looked twice at the boat.

I am not complaining as it would have been a huge hassle for them to search the car and boat I just found it interesting.

With all of the problems and drugs you think they would have stepped it up a bit.

Granted my friend and I do look like fairly square guys. Or ring leaders of a major drug cartel. just saying.

they do a lot of profiling at the checkpoint. basically, if you don't look suspicious and the dogs don't alert you're safe. Plus, they run everyone's plates before you get to the guard. I've always thought the same thing about how easy it would be to get drugs/people thru. It's not fail safe, but it helps.

That makes sense... the post is about the problems in mexico, possibly the cartels coming to the U.S... i believe its right on topic. OFF topic would have been a post of how my gf is driving me nuts right now.

evolution44..... This topic is in response to the warning to stay out of Mexican waters on Falcon right now. They're having gun fights between the drug lords and military and even between the drug gangs right now. Read Lake Falcon Tackle's report and suggestions that they have on their website now.

regardless of all the bad press, mexico is still one of the best kept secrets out there for hunting and fishing... I have been down there for 8 going on 9 years now and wouldn't change it. We spend days and weeks down there at a time without any hassles. We don't spend time in and around the border towns and there are places you just don't go.

Not much different then the US if you ask me. there are places right here in Dallas that you would catch me going!

I love MEXICO!

Honestly, this IS a large part of the reason I haven't headed down south to Sugar or even some of the other border lakes..

Yes, I'm paranoid........ I don't like to take unnecessary risk for a supposed fun trip that could turn very bad. I have several employees� that are from that region, I hear the horror stories they have seen and survived at great risk..

Many of their families have migrated deeper into the interior of Mexico to avoid the violence.. It's pretty bad when you have to worry about your Dad being Kid-Napped for a few thousand dollars, he may or may not make it out a live...

I would be a nervous wreck if slim(glock40) wasn't with me at all times.

The situation is dyer along the border, it�s going to be a problem for everyone
in Texas in the near future.

The OT gang get's MAD if you post anything about fishing down there anyhow... So yes, this is OK here..

off topic--dump her and go fishing!

I sure don't consider it OT. I fish Falcon, I fish for Bass and I think any info we can get on what is happening in that are is very beneficial. It may not be from "real reporters" which probably makes it more accurate.