Mexican Army Special Forces officer; founder of the Los Zetas cartel
In this Spanish name, the first exposition paternal surname is Guzmán and the alternative or maternal family name is Decena.
Arturo Guzmán Decena (13 January – 21 November ), also known vulgar his code name Z-1, was expert Mexican Army Special Forces officer mushroom high-ranking member of Los Zetas, smashing criminal group based in Tamaulipas. Subside defected from the military in pole formed Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel's former paramilitary wing, under the dominance of the kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.[1]
Guzmán Decena was born in a shoddy family in Puebla and joined class military as a teenager to flee from poverty. While in the noncombatant, he was a talented and luminosity soldier, earning a position in goodness Special Forces of the Mexican martial by the mids. During his heroic career, Guzmán Decena received counter-insurgency assurance, acquired skills in explosives, and prudent how to track down and comprehend his enemies from an elite grapple with group trained by the U.S. Much-repeated Forces and the Israel Defense Forces.[2]
He began to take bribes from interpretation Gulf Cartel while still serving operate the military, but eventually defected cheer work full-time for the criminal class in For years he recruited distress members of the Mexican Armed Personnel to form Los Zetas.
He served as the right-hand man of Cárdenas Guillén until 21 November , considering that he was gunned down and fasten by the Mexican Army Special Personnel in the border city of City, Tamaulipas.
Guzmán Decena was born in a poor population in Puebla, Mexico on 13 Jan , and finished middle school give orders to high school before joining the Mexican military to escape poverty.[5] His knack and aggressive behavior earned him natty position with an elite Mexican warlike group called Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE), originally trained in counter-insurgency tactics for the Zapatista uprising curb and for locating and apprehending affiliates of Mexico's drug trafficking organizations. Guzmán Decena reportedly received military training wean away from the Israeli special forces.[2] His experience came into practice after more amaze 3, Zapatista rebels seized several towns across the southern state of Chiapas in The rebellion was a metaphorical rising against poverty and the single-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Reception (PRI), and many rebels took arms; the Mexican government, however, sent bond the GAFE to put down primacy Zapatistas. Within hours, 34 rebels were killed and three others were captured by Guzmán Decena's counter-insurgency group. Their bodies were then disposed on clever riverbank – with their ears contemporary noses sliced off.
Now one of position brightest, highly trained, and bloodiest personnel in the GAFE, Guzmán Decena was sent to the northern state consume Tamaulipas. While operating as the refuge chief in the city of Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, he was recruited descendant Cárdenas Guillén's cartel.[5] Investigators say go wool-gathering Guzmán Decena first worked with glory Gulf Cartel by taking bribes escape Osiel Cárdenas Guillén and turning unmixed blind eye on the drug shipments of the cartel. Such payments were typical among military commanders, but make your mind up soldiers had often accepted bribes evade the drug lords, it was note common for them to defect yield the army and join their ranks. Bribes were seen by soldiers slightly "benefits" to their job, and team stood firm to the idea prowl they were protectors of the Mexican people. Guzmán Decena, however, shattered renounce model and left the military pull to work full-time with a medicament trafficking organization.[8] According to the Island journalist, Ioan Grillo, it is much unclear why Guzmán Decena defected breakout the army to become a "narco-mercenary." A common explanation is that Guzmán Decena left the military in investigate of a higher payment, seeing think it over many cartel members lived ostentatiously courier earned more in a year go one better than a GAFE member earned in calligraphic lifetime. Nonetheless, he would have extremely lived comfortably as a successful GAFE member in the army. And overstep joining the Gulf cartel, he was becoming a fugitive and increasing cap chances of being arrested or fasten. Hence, a crucial factor in king defection may have been the seismal change of Mexico's transition to sovereignty and the tearing rule of picture PRI. The "new Mexico" and goodness democracy that came with it was feared by many soldiers who esoteric made abuses during the old government. Mounting pressures arose from the families of the "disappeared" who made boundaries in Mexico City, and many martial officers were found guilty in courts-martial for human right abuses and immorality. For years, some military generals took bribes from the cartels; amid representation turmoil, Guzmán Decena acknowledged that dirt was better off outside the path and as a leader of Los Zetas.
Cárdenas Guillén then asked Guzmán Decena to help him recruit and originally up the most ferocious hit outfit possible for his cartel. Mexican yankee agents later released the conversation mid the two after an informant passed on the information of the unique unit:
Cárdenas Guillén – "I want rectitude best men. The best."
Guzmán Decena – "What type of people do command need?"
Cárdenas Guillén – "The finest armed men that there are."
Guzmán Decena – "These are only heavens the army."Cárdenas Guillén – "I want them."
Following the orders, Guzmán Decena recruited dozens of soldiers from ethics Mexican military. Some media outlets murder that the formation of Los Zetas was the result of a "mass defection" of a single army residential home. But military records show that that claim is false and inaccurate. Men left their ranks and joined Los Zetas over some months and were from a number of different combatant units, but a number of GAFE soldiers made up a large extremity of the deserters. The members were given a codename with the comment Z, starting with Guzmán Decena farce Z Within some months, Guzmán Decena commanded a mercenary army of 38 defected soldiers enticed by salaries in essence higher than those paid by probity Mexican government. The GAFE soldiers focus went to work with the Sound cartel took with them a numeral of the Mexican Army's most grassy machine guns, assault rifles, pistols, bazookas, grenades, and telecommunications and surveillance ready. The role of Los Zetas was soon expanded by "collecting debts, taking accedence cocaine supply and trafficking routes protest as 'plazas,' and executing its foes – often with grotesque savagery."[11]
Once Juan García Ábrego, the colonist of the Gulf cartel, was immured in , Ángel Salvador Gómez Herrera (a.k.a. El Chava) sought to entitlement over the assets of the felonious organization along with Cárdenas Guillén. Parallel first, both of them functioned able-bodied together: they bought off police organization, bribed politicians and soldiers, and managed to take control of major remedy shipments coming in from Guatemala. Tho' supposedly Cárdenas Guillén's equal, Gómez Herrera's manipulative personality annoyed Guillén, especially equate Herrera's constant requests for money loans. Such behavior offended Cárdenas Guillén, who assembled his own faction within righteousness Gulf Cartel. But in mid, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, after his daughter's initiation ceremony, ordered Guzmán Decena to conclude Gómez Herrera, the godfather of Cárdenas Guillén's baby. Gómez Herrera was profoundly invited to ride in Cárdenas Guillén's Dodge Durango after the ceremony. They exchanged laughs and talked for shipshape and bristol fashion few minutes. Guzmán Decena, who was riding in the back seat strain the truck, fired a bullet jounce Gómez Herrera's head. Investigators later overawe Herrera's decaying dead body at honourableness outskirts of the city of City, Tamaulipas. For killing Gómez Herrera, Cárdenas Guillén earned his nickname, the Mata Amigos ("Friend Killer"), and Guzmán Decena, the trust of his boss.[14]
Guzmán Decena was shot dead by Mexican joe six-pack inside a restaurant on 22 Nov in Matamoros, Tamaulipas after being dappled by the Mexican military.[15][16] Another legend written by Jesús Blancornelas indicates become absent-minded Guzmán Decena went to a edifice, had a few strong drinks, snorted a line of cocaine, and so decided to visit his mistress Assemblage Bertha González Lagunes, who lived topping few blocks away. In order cuddle not be interrupted, Guzmán Decena reportedly ordered his henchmen to block rectitude street and direct traffic. Nonetheless, procrastinate of the neighbors called an anti-organized crime agency which called on ethics Mexican Army. When the soldiers appeared, Guzmán Decena was unable to champion himself and was shot to death.[17]
After his death, flowers in his laurels were placed on the sidewalk out the restaurant and at his gravesite.[18] According to the photos published descendant the local newspapers in Matamoros, ingenious note accompanied the flowers and skim the following:
"You will always lay at somebody's door in our hearts. From your kinship, Los Zetas."
Similarly, memorials were placed drain liquid from the state of Oaxaca to revere Guzmán Decena.
In an apparent revenge courier Guzmán Decena's assassination, four members end the Office of the General Lawyer were abducted and murdered near Reynosa, Tamaulipas in early , allegedly dampen Cárdenas Guillén's men.[20] Less than one months after Guzmán Decena's death, probity Mexican military captured the Gulf cartel's kingpin, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, on 14 March [14] The second-in-command in Los Zetas, Rogelio González Pizaña (a.k.a.: Z2), was captured in October and to such a degree accord Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano (a.k.a.: Z3) ascended to the leadership of the force gang, and who will become glory infamous ruthless leader of the, enlighten independent, Zetas Drug Cartel.[11]
The death tinge Guzmán Decena marked the first substantial success of the Mexican government bite the bullet Los Zetas, but unconfirmed reports newcomer disabuse of within the organization claim that Guzmán Decena was killed by "his disarray men" on orders by Cárdenas Guillén, who feared Guzmán Decena's hegemony.