Zetas brutality bred informants

By Jason Buch

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  Photo By Michael Miller / For the San Antonio Express-News 
  U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman (center) jokes with a reporter after the jury convicted José Treviño Morales and three other men.

AUSTIN — The Zetas drug cartel's brutal enforcement methods drove witnesses with intimate knowledge of the gang's quarter horse operations into the waiting arms of U.S. law enforcement, according to testimony in a federal trial here.
A crew of Piedras Negras traffickers who allegedly helped Zetas leader Miguel Treviño Morales launder money through his brother's U.S. quarter horse business testified that they had turned themselves in to U.S. law enforcement as they fled the cartel's wrath in Mexico.



They brought with them a ledger they said outlined payments for horse training and care using drug money, and gave testimony that they delivered cash to Treviño's frontmen in the U.S. and at one point smuggled immigrants to work on the Central Texas ranch of an alleged money launderer.
Defense attorneys say the traffickers are accused of committing brutal killings in Mexico. On Thursday, lawyers for one of the men on trial alerted U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks that they will be questioning whether the traffickers really were fleeing the wrath of the Zeta — or Mexican law enforcement.
José Treviño Morales, a U.S. citizen and Miguel Treviño's brother; Francisco Colorado Cessa, a Mexican businessman; Fernando Solis Garcia, a quarter horse expert; Jesus Maldonado Huitron, an Austin-area homebuilder; and his brother, Eusevio Maldonado Huitron, a horse trainer with a ranch near Bastrop, are all on trial facing one count of conspiracy to launder money. Prosecutors allege they laundered millions of dollars of the Zetas' drug money through U.S. quarter horse breeding and racing companies.
Over two weeks of testimony, jurors have heard from federal agents, quarter horse industry insiders and members of the Piedras Negras trafficking crew run by Mario Alfonso Cuellar, who said they ran tons of cocaine to San Antonio and Dallas.
Hector Moreno, a 35-year-old trafficker from Piedras Negras, testified that in 2011 he fled from Miguel Treviño and his brother Omar after the Zetas leaders went on a killing spree across the border state of Coahuila.
Moreno said he'd been moving 800 kilograms, or about 1,700 pounds, of cocaine a month into the U.S. and sending about $4 million back to Mexico every 10 days when the Treviño brothers began the killings in Mexican towns in northern Coahuila, which borders Texas from west of Laredo to the Big Bend region. A series of seizures by U.S. law enforcement officials had convinced the brothers that they needed to clean house.
“They started killing families in Allende and Piedras Negras and Múzquiz and Sabinas,” Moreno testified. “They also wanted to kill me.”
When he fled, Moreno said, he brought with him a ledger showing drug payments for horse training and upkeep in the U.S. He also brought allegations that the Treviños were laundering large sums of money through quarter horses. On the witness stand, Moreno related a conversation with Miguel Treviño.
“He said it was a good business and they were going to get clean money out of this business,” Moreno said.
Another time, Moreno said, he helped smuggle people into the U.S. to work on Eusevio Huitron's ranch, caring for Miguel Treviño's horses.
When he fled to the U.S., Moreno said, Miguel Treviño, who is known by his radio call sign “El 40,” and Omar Treviño, who's known as “El 42,” reacted violently.
“I didn't bring any money because 40 and 42 destroyed and seized all of it,” he testified. “Because of this, they killed 200 or 300 people in Allende, Coahuila.”
Moreno's supervisor, Cuellar, and the remaining members of their crew eventually surrendered to or were arrested by U.S. authorities. Among them was Raul Guadalajara, a trafficker who for a time lived in San Antonio, overseeing Cuellar's smuggling operations there.
Guadalajara said he once saw Colorado Cessa, the Mexican businessman, racing horses with Miguel Treviño at a track in Coahuila.
“It was a private race just for the Zetas,” he said. “There were like 80 armed people there. They had like vests, they had AK-47s, they had hand grenades.”
Guadalajara also testified he sent $15,000 to Eusevio Huitron to pay for horse expenses. When his driver delivered the money, he made a joke about cocaine that was not well received, Guadalajara testified.
“In less than 30 minutes it got back to 40, and I got in trouble in Mexico,” he said.
While watching the 2010 All-American Futurity, the premier quarter horse race in the U.S., on the Internet with members of the Zetas, Guadalajara said, he heard El 40 and El 42 talking about their brother, José, who for many years was a bricklayer in Dallas.
“(El 40) said that his brother, after waking up every day at five in the morning to work, never imagined he'd work in the horse business,” Guadalajara said. “He was saying that to 42, and 42 would turn around and laugh and say, 'We made him.'”
Defense attorneys signaled Thursday that they'll continue to attack the credibility of Cuellar, who is testifying to reduce a 20-year prison sentence, and Moreno, who hasn't been charged and cut a deal with prosecutors.
Christie Williams, an attorney for José Treviño, said she will introduce arrest warrants from the state of Coahuila that accuse Cuellar and Moreno of kidnapping three people and beating them to death with hammers.