(The Center Square) – Authorities in Mexico announced that a top lieutenant of a violent faction of the Gulf Cartel has been arrested, Hugo Salina Cortinas, nicknamed, “La Cabra,” or “the goat.”
Cortinas reportedly operated in the Mexican towns of Camargo and Miguel Aleman located directly across from the Texas cities of Rio Grande City and Roma in Starr County. He “allegedly headed up drug and migrant smuggling along the stretch of the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river” for the Gulf Cartel, the Associated Press reported.
The Gulf Cartel has traditionally controlled the trafficking of people and drugs in the region of Mexico south of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. However, Gulf, Zeta and CJNG cartel members are increasingly engaging in violence in Tamaulipas, battling for control over a multibillion-dollar trafficking businesses.
Cortinas was reportedly arrested on Friday. Over the weekend, blockades were constructed in several municipalities in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which shares the southernmost part of the Texas border, running parallel to five Texas counties.
Mexican-based Excelsior News reported that authorities in the municipalities of Matamoros and Reynosa in Tamaulipas constructed narco-blockades in streets and highways over the weekend. Residents uploaded videos to social media networks showing convoys of trucks after the Public Security Secretariat confirmed fighting among cartels and organized crime groups in Jimenez.
Mexican Imagen Television also reported of violence in San Fernando where drug blockades and shootings occurred in Matamoros.
Over the weekend, “Armed forces withdrew drug blockades and confronted armed men in several municipalities. At least 24 vans with hitmen arrived in San Fernando. The governor of the state of Tamaulipas, Americo Villarreal, said “everything is calm,” Imagen TV reported.
The arrest of Cortinas took place a few weeks after another Gulf Cartel boss and south Texas resident, Lee Roy Villareal of Rio Grande City, was sentenced to 180 months in prison for his role in a cocaine distribution conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas announced in March.
The charges allege that over a five-year-period, Villarreal and his associates distributed 150-450 kilograms of cocaine from Mexico and Panama to a large number of cocaine distributors throughout the U.S., including in cities in Texas, Georgia, Illinois and Indiana.
His brother, Michael Villarreal, known as “Gringo Mike,” who was a Gulf Cartel plaza boss, was killed in March 2013 by rival Gulf Cartel members.
“Drug cartels like Gulf Cartel aka Cartel del Golfo (CDG) flood our communities with drugs that cause death and destruction, but high-ranking CDG leaders like Villarreal are not immune from stiff punishments,” US Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said when announcing the sentencing. “This prosecution dealt a tough blow to the CDG’s operations. Villarreal brought poison to our communities, and collaborative efforts with our partners brought him to justice.”
“Villarreal was also in charge of repatriating proceeds from the sale of cocaine back to Gringo Mike and Gulf Cartel members in Mexico,” the complaint states, noting that he “used at least one stash house in Mission to store cocaine and drug proceeds.”
Villarreal denied the accusations and any association with his brother at his trial, saying he only operated a legitimate auto mechanic business. The jury didn’t believe him. After an 8-day trial and roughly four hours of deliberation, they returned a guilty verdict against Villarreal.
So far, 12 others have been convicted for their alleged role in the conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Cortinas’ arrest also came after the Department of Justice last month charged El Chapo’s sons with fentanyl trafficking and murder. And after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last September designated Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and has repeatedly called on the president to designate the cartels as FTOs. Since then, at least 21 attorneys general have also called on the president to do the same.
This article First appeared in the center square