The death last Friday of Galindo Mellado Cruz, reported as one of the “founders” of the powerful Los Zetas cartel, is a symbolic victory for Mexico. Mellado appears to have had limited to no operational command in Tamaulipas, according to media reports, and thus the significance of his death is the fact that he was part of the original group of soldiers who defected from an elite Mexican special forces unit to found Los Zetas. The original Zetas created a “myth” or mystique around their disciplined, military-style training that the U.S. and Mexico media latched onto. Los Zetas seemed invincible, and Mellado Cruz’s death is another example of the bursting of the mythical bubble.
Mellado Cruz was killed in a gun battle with soldiers that took six lives in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, just south of the Texas border. One soldier was killed in the battle that included .50 caliber sniper fire. Reports have not indicated whether the soldier was a SEDENA (Army) or SEMAR (Marines), though it has been the Marines that have played a critical role in targeting kingpins in the region.
The reference to Mellado as “founder” may be overblown, as he was not the first to be recruited by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, then head of the Gulf cartel. He was likely recruited by Arturo Decena (Z-1), who founded the Zetas and led the paramilitary unit from 1997 until his 2002 death. As one of the original members, Mellado Cruz likely played an important role in training Zeta recruits, much improving their original training through a sophisticated mix of professionalism, intelligence-gathering and military-style tactics; analysts refer to this as the “Zeta effect.”
In the split between the Zeta and Gulf Cartel, which was formalized in 2010, Mellado Cruz appears to have supported the idea of having the Gulf cartel remain in control of Reynosa, according to the Monitor and Borderlandbeat. According to recent government statements, he does not appear to have played a major drug trafficking role; he instead operated a kidnap, bank robbery and car theft cell in Reynosa.
The Mexican Marines have been working diligently to target high-level traffickers in Mexico’s northeast and have scored many key arrests against both the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas. These major arrests and killings of key figures are likely to maintain current levels of destabilization among organized crime groups in the region. This indicates the government strategy, if it can truly be said to have one, is to destabilize and break apart various organized crime groups into smaller, more manageable pieces. As scholars such as David Shirk have pointed out, sometimes violence increases when large groups are involuntarily split into multiple groups.
In the wake of kingpin strikes, various factions are vying for control of the criminal organizations. The situation has become so complex in Tamaulipas that most analysts are not entirely sure what is happening. Tamaulipas has been referred to as a failed state by analysts because of the penetration of organized crime in the state and the ongoing conflict between the Gulf and Zeta Cartels. Generally, violence erupted at high levels in 2010 after the Gulf-Zetas split, appeared to have stabilized by 2012 and increased in its current complex incarnation in recent months. These levels of violence are likely to continue until state institutions can be strengthened.
Nathan Jones is the Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy at the Baker Institute. His areas of interest include U.S.-Mexico security issues, illicit networks and cross-border flows. Follow him on Twitter at @natejudejones.