Hello there! Hola to the few who still check out this column to learn about crazy antics of America’s favorite suppliers. Yeah, I know I haven’t been updating you for a while on account that I’m getting lazy (weed ain’t exactly speed, neither is Rohypnol). And I don’t have much of an excuse since I’m unemployed and have a lot of free time on my hands, time which I spend doing everything but writing…

To be completely honest, I kinda lost interest in the whole Drug War. It became like watching a re-run of a sitcom you kinda like. Watch it long enough and you’ll start hating it little by little, because it always more of the same plot and punch lines: A big gunfight in Guerrero, another decapitation in Chihuahua, the biggest drug lab ever busted in Michoacan (and then a few days later an even bigger one is busted) or the detention of a “big” capo in Tijuana. Same ol’, same ol’.

Maybe it’s a problem with us Mexicans. Since we see and hear about it every day it’s become part of the daily grind, violence on the corner that you don’t even notice because you’re worried about what you’re gonna have for dinner.

And maybe that’s why the Americans are so worried about the situation in Mexico.

Narco-culture is like your 1960’s failed counterculture. The link here is drugs, but unlike your peace-loving hippies, the narcos are violent enough. More than enough, even. They have the cash and weapons and the capability to challenge the state.

Unlike the hippies, they are in a position to actually succeed in transforming the State in their narco-culture image. And that must scare the shit out of Washington. And so we get the Merida Initiative, or 1.6 billion worth of greenbacks for the Drug War effort.

It’s not just the American healthcare industry who doesn’t like Obama’s meddling much. A lot of Latinos are going to miss Bush and his 8 years of non-intervention in Latin America. Like you’d say in your Gringo Spanish, “It was mucho good for business.”

It’s silly when you think about it. $1.6 billion in anti-drug aid over three years? Last I read, you gringo drug users transferred something like $20 billion to my home country last year. Thanks for the cash…

A local Tamaulipas politician said it best when describing the narco-culture in our country (by the way, to be a politician here, you either have to be crazy or stupid—not brave though, all the brave politicians are in the cemetery):

“Narcos used to be our neighbors, now they are going to be in our Municipal Palaces”

Or in our vacation resorts, like “Comandante Colosio”, one of the people I talked about earlier who was captured in Cancun by the Mexican Army earlier this month, and the person I want profile for you today.

That was how his story come to an end. The rowdy and troublesome bandido is now being held “bajo arraigo“—meaning he is in a state of legal limbo in which the unlucky dude who is “arraigado” is held under arrest while the authorities investigate if he did anything wrong. Fuck what you heard, in Mexico you are guilty until proven otherwise.

That’s why the death penalty is a big NO-NO in this country, too many ways the State can fuck up, and the Mexican goverment fucks up A LOT.

But I want to return to the life story of Mr. Colosio, real name: Juan Daniel Carranco Salazar. After they got him, Juan quickly confessed he has been involved with the Gulf Cartel since 2002, starting off his career as a lowly “mover/transporter”. He doesn’t exactly say where, but most likely he was a “pusher”, which is a good position if you want to enter the good graces of los patrones.

He worked in the cell led by Miguel Angel Treviño “el 40,” now a full-fledged cartel capo. But back then he was a jefe de sicarios (leader of the hit men/enforcers).

After pushing enough dope up the border, he earned his cred and took over administrative activities for the criminal cell. He quickly rose to be the main administrator of economic resources of the cell led by “el 40”.

You see how the short and stocky Juan worked his way up the criminal ranks? It not much unlike Bob from accounting kissing asses to escalate the corporate ladder so he can live the life of a CEO and fuck up the global economy.

But I’m not being fair in my comparison, not fair to Señor Juan, I mean. At least narco traffickers are honest about the shit that they are into, comparing him to a Goldman Sachs-style goon wouldn’t be just wrong, it’d be an insult.

The Sachs are a low breed, even compared to the Zetas.

Our little Juan confessed to multiple crimes, like when the Zetas used the US consulate and local TV station Televisa Monterrey as target practice; gotta test fire those R-15s, make sure those shiny toys from Arizona or Texas are working properly and as advertised.

He participated in most of the high-impact action when he was integrated into the cells of Gory and el Canicon, who where in charge of the plaza in Monterrey, including the murderings of several soldiers. Three of them got their throats cut outside a stripclub. Hey, they had style and grace.

After that, there were several other high profile hits and then he was given the plaza of Cadereyta here in Nuevo Leon, which must have made his boss el 40 happy, real happy. This is a good plaza for making the cash money, milking oil pipelines for example. I’m not sure If he was involved in oil-theft, but since Zetas want to monopolize criminal activities around here, it would not surprise me.

It will be only a matter of time before they go into pickpocketing. They’re like Google. They want have their hand in everything and be the best at it.

Ok, so brave Juan is now the boss of an important plaza in the state. And it’s around this time that he comes into the spotlight when he was wounded and then rescued by municipal cops during a shootout with the military personnel (that’s our cops for you, always ready to help) in the Viejo Mesquital area of Apodaca, NL. This generated a chain reaction that shook every metropolitan area Police Corporation, exposing them as associates/facilitators/employees and all-around bitches for the narcos. A fact everyone but Presidente Felipe knew, I guess.

After all this heat, Juan’s bosses decided that it was best if Juan was rotated out of the area until shit cooled off. So they sent him to Cancun to fill the narco-boss spot left open by a one Juan Manuel Jurado Zarzoza, or “El Puma”. The guy’s mentioned in some YouTube torture videos. If you are interested (and know spanish) search for: “matazetas”.

Anyways Colosio filled the spot left by Señor El Puma who was arrested in June this year. Puma was involved in most of the shady businesses you find around Cancun, like smuggling Cubans FOR the yanks (some aid agency funded by the US Government, but you probably don’t hear about this much in the US, do you?) and I don’t mean cigars…

So Cancun it is, I don’t think Juan complained much there. Who cares if the last two jefes de plaza didn’t last very long. Fuck it, send me to the paradise lost of the Mayan Riviera.

Well, he didn’t stick around for very long, either. He was caught wearing a construction worker vest or something, along with a bodyguard and his female accountant. Nabbing an accountant, that’s becoming more and more common when mid-to-hi level capos get detained. Not a big suprise, though. This is an international, multi-billion dollar business were talking about here.

Here’s the loot confiscated along with Juan (and the accountant):

– 6 short arms (handguns, various calibers)
– 46 chargers/magazines (doesnt specify if they are for pistols or rifles)
– 1kg of coke
– 4 vehicles (models not specified)
– 67 grams of weed (personal portion for the day? Most likely)
– $2071 american dollars
– $114,670 mexican pesos (roughly $10,000 USD)
– 1 PC
– Communications equipment (cellular phones, nextel radios and maybe some hi-end MATRAS radios)

So, is it the end for Juan? It may very well be. He’ll probably end up being sent to a maximum security prison to rot. Then one day, in the middle of the night, they’ll come for him. It’ll be military or SIEDO, and they’ll take the firmly tied-up Juan on a helicopter tour of the Pacific Ocean. And they’ll remind him of the 12 soldiers he killed in Monterrey and will be thrown out of the bird (a brand new Blackhawk, courtesy of the USA) into the open ocean, never to be seen, or heard of, or remembered… Erased. Like the “desaparecidos” (the disappeared ones) during the Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) of the 70s against communist revolutionaries. But now, instead of calling them guerrilleros, they call them narcos. The “desaparecidos” of the war against drug cartels. Amen.

Pancho Montana is an eXiled Special Mexican War on Drugs Correspondent. You can reach him at montana [at] exiledonline.com.

As a native of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, located in northern Mexico, Mr. Montana lives in Gulf Cartel territory. That means the streets belong to the Zetas, a paramilitary organization trained by the Yankees and hired by the Gulf Cartel to keep things civilized and business booming.

Read more: drug cartel, drug war, mexico, monterrey, zetas, Pancho Montana, The Mexican Drug War

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