ABCNews | The new head of the Zetas drug cartel is a former Dallas resident who is
scorned as a traitor by many of his own cartel soldiers and mocked as
an ex-"car washer" by his enemies, but has risen to power thanks to a
fearsome reputation for violence.
"[Miguel Angel Trevino Morales] is extremely brutal, to the point of
sadism," says George Grayson, an expert on the Zetas. "He is prepared to
advance his interest through unspeakable violence." Grayson's recent
book on the cartel, "The Executioner's Men,"
opens with a scene in which Trevino Morales slowly beats a female
police officer to death, in front of her colleagues, with a
two-by-four.
Trevino Morales, also known as El 40 or the Monkey, became the
uncontested head of the Mexico's most feared drug cartel when former
kingpin Heriberto Lazcano was killed in a shootout with Mexican Marines
on Sunday. Lazcano had been linked to hundreds of murders, including the
massacre of 72 civilians, but Trevino Morales is allegedly even more
bloodthirsty. One of his preferred methods of dealing with enemies, say
authorities, is burning them alive.
Trevino Morales, 41, was born in Mexico but spent some of his formative
years in Dallas, Texas, where authorities say he had a criminal record
as a teenager. He has a dozen siblings and reportedly still has family
in the Dallas area.
According to the Associated Press, he became a teen go-fer for the Los
Tejas gang, which was powerful in the Mexican border city of Nuevo
Laredo, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.
Trevino Morales joined the Zetas soon after their formation. The Zetas
began in the late 1990s as the security wing of the Gulf Cartel. The 14
core members of the Zetas, including Heriberto Lazcano, all had military
backgrounds, and took ranks based on when they'd joined the group.
Lazcano was known as Z-3. By 2004, due to the death of Z-1 and the
arrest of Z-2, Lazcano had become the leader of the Zetas.
