A killer of import?

I seldom use “Borderland Beat”  as a source, considering it simply narco-war porn, but I was fascinated by the comments on an article on the arrest of Martin Omar Estrada Luna, aka “Comandante Kilo”, described by that site as “leader of the Zeta cell in San Fernando [Tamaulipas] “, and fingered as the intellectual author of the serial and mass murders in that community.

Commentators noted that “Kilo’s” tattoos (reprinted in Borderland Beat from  “Blog de Narco” photos) are those associated with a northern California prison gang, and … in the words of one anonymous poster:

He looks like some pocho from LA or NM. Wack ass vatos. Fat overweight and tattooed. he thinks he is sooo hard. This guy is a chicano bitch trying act hard in MEx.

The tattoo in question is “NORTEÑO” across his (paunchy) stomach. Not knowing a thing about the composition of various California gangs (nor, really, much interested in the subject), I’ll assume another commentator, “Cuete”, has more knowledge on the subject:

Yeah I read Norteno which makes me wonder too where he is from.. Im here in Ea$t Oakland shakin my head at this piece of shit…Iʻm Nue$tra Familia (if you know what a Norte is you know what I am) and Im just tryin to figure out why if he is a homeboy is he down there doin shit with the Zetas (whom usually fuck with $ureno$ or The Barrio Aztecas) but con$idering hes in trouble for killing civilians I could only assume hes been around too many $krapa$ that shit dont fly in the Northern Califa$

It didn’t taken the press long to figure out exactly where “Comandante Kilo” was from:  although Mexican-born, was made in the U.S.A. — Tieton, Washington (population about 1500) to be exact. As Mark Morey and David Lester of the Yakima Herald-Republic report:

Tieton police Chief Jeff Ketchum said he has known Estrada since Ketchem started working for the police department in 1994, about a year after Estrada started racking up his first criminal charges in juvenile court.

…

Acquaintances said Estrada left the Highland School District well before he would have graduated in 1995. That year, he pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary in connection with the theft of a Ford Taurus from the school district. The sentencing judge ordered him not to have any contact with district schools as part of the plea.

Yakima County Superior Court records listed him as unemployed; the friend says Estrada supported himself in the drug trade.

…

Besides the burglary charge, his adult felony convictions in Yakima County involved a burglary and for brandishing a knife in Tieton.

When he was sentenced in 2006 for an immigration violation, federal prosecutors pointed out that he had managed to amass 16 felony and misdemeanor convictions.

…

Estrada was ultimately sentenced to 41 months for returning to the United States a third time after being deported twice before.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday that he was deported in 2009 from Reno, Nev., after completing his sentence.

The ICE database shows no contact with Estrada since that last deportation.

However, the friend of Estrada said the last time they had contact, Estrada was living in Laredo, Texas, just across the border from Nuevo Laredo.

“Fat, overweight and tattooed”  doesn’t jive with our popular image of the Zetas as super-soldiers gone bad.  But, than, as I’ve said before, those Zetas paraded before the cameras tend to have a closer resemblance to the Bimbo Bear than Dolf Lungren or Jean-Claude van Damme. If anything, the 34 year old Estrada is a sorrier-looking physical specimen than other supposed Zetas I’ve seen in previous perp-walk photos.

Estrada’s gang-connections raise a question or two about the supposed role of the Zetas and other “cartels” in the U.S. narcotics trade.  While cooperation (or at least equal employment opportunity) for gang members from the United States in Mexico by the Zetas sounds more than plausible, and it’s been well-reported that Mexican “cartels” recruit U.S. criminals for their retail distribution (well… duh!), that these gangs are bitter rivals in the United States indicates that there isn’t some huge international criminal network involved in the narcotics trade, but that it works like any other commodities market… selling to various retailers who fight it out among themselves for market shares.

Estrada’s supposed residence in Laredo, Texas — hometown of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka “El Barbie”, is interesting. El Barbie, as you’ll recall was said to be the Zeta’st another “cartel top hit man and their leader.   After his capture (which itself was dubious, other “kingpins” not being taken alive) he was to be extradited to the United States last November and then disappeared from any mention in the press (presumably he is in the United States under “protective custody”… or not).

Although it’s not all that surprising that Mexican-Americans would be involved in exploiting Mexicans in the commodities growing and export trade,  the Zetas are the only one of the so-called cartels where U.S. export “kingpins” have surfaced born or bred gangsters have regularly surfaced. *

And, all this assumes he is, as said, the mastermind of these killings.  I must admit that the rapidity with which the crime was solved — not when people were being extorted, or began to disappear, or when migrants reported problems, or even when it first became clear that people were being murdered in San Fernando, but only when it became a political liability to the Calderón Administration — makes me question whether the “wack ass vato” is the intellectual author of the slaughter in Tamaulipas, and whether or not the real criminals are sitting across the border, simply writing off Estrada as “collateral damage” in their own war on the Mexican people.

* Boz pointed out in his comment a egregious mistake on my part, which — as it stood — suggested the Zetas were a U.S. controlled gang.  They could be, although only in the sense that that’s where the money (and weapons) ultimately are.  Edgar Valdez so far is something of an out-lier among the Mexican gangster community, in that he really was a faction leader of some importance, and a foreigner.