page_title: Mexican Drug War
section_title: Los Zetas
hierarchical_section_title: Mexican Drug War / Mexican cartels / Major cartels in the war / Los Zetas
caption_attribution_description: English: Leadership chart of the Gulf Carte and Los Zetas in March 2010.
context_page_description: The Mexican Drug War is the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the U.S. federal government, that has resulted in an ongoing asymmetric low-intensity conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates. When the Mexican military began to intervene in 2006, the government's principal goal was to reduce drug-related violence. The Mexican government has asserted that their primary focus is on dismantling the powerful drug cartels, and on preventing drug trafficking demand along with the U.S. functionaries.
  Violence escalated soon after the arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1989; he was the leader and the founder of the first Mexican drug cartel, the Guadalajara Cartel, an alliance of the current existing cartels headed by Félix Gallardo. Due to his arrest, the alliance broke and certain high-ranking members formed their own cartels and each of them fought for control of territory and trafficking routes.
  Although Mexican drug trafficking organizations have existed for several decades, their influence increased after the demise of the Colombian Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s.
context_section_description: In 1999, Gulf Cartel's leader, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, hired a group of 37 corrupt former elite military soldiers to work for him. These former Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), and Amphibian Group of Special Forces (GANFE) soldiers became known as Los Zetas and began operating as a private army for the Gulf Cartel. During the early 2000s the Zetas were instrumental in the Gulf Cartel's domination of the drug trade in much of Mexico.
  After the 2007 arrest and extradition of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the Zetas seized the opportunity to strike out on their own. Under the leadership of Heriberto Lazcano, the Zetas, numbering about 300, gradually set up their own independent drug, arms and human-trafficking networks. In 2008, Los Zetas made a deal with ex-Sinaloa cartel commanders, the Beltrán-Leyva brothers and since then, became rivals of their former employer/partner, the Gulf Cartel.
  In early 2010 the Zetas made public their split from the Gulf Cartel and began a bloody war with Gulf Cartel over control of northeast Mexico's drug trade routes. This war has resulted in the deaths of thousands of cartel members and suspected members. Furthermore, due to alliance structures, the Gulf Cartel-Los Zetas conflict drew in other cartels, namely the Sinaloa Cartel which fought the Zetas in 2010 and 2011.
  The Zetas are notorious for targeting civilians, including the mass murder of 72 migrants in the San Fernando massacre.
  The Zetas involved themselves in more than drug trafficking and have also been connected to human trafficking, pipeline trafficked oil theft, extortion, and trading unlicensed CDs. Their criminal network is said to reach far from Mexico including into Central America, the U.S. and Europe.
  On 15 July 2013, the Mexican Navy arrested the top Zeta boss Miguel Treviño Morales.
  In recent times, Los Zetas have experienced severe fragmentation and seen its influence diminish. As of December 2016, two subgroups calling themselves Los Zetas Grupo Bravo (Group Bravo) and Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas) formed an alliance with the Gulf Cartel against a group known as El Cartel del Noreste (The Cartel of the Northeast).
caption: Leadership chart of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, March 2010
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