wired | The Mexican military is trying to dismantle an extensive network of
radio antennas built and operated by the notorious Zeta drug cartel. But
the authorities haven’t had much luck shutting Radio Zeta down. Not
only is much of the equipment super-easy to replace. But the cartel has
also apparently found some unwilling — and alarming — assistance by
kidnapping and enslaving technicians to help build it.
At least 36 engineers and technicians have been kidnapped in the past four years, according to a report from Mexican news site Animal Politico, with an English translation
published by organized-crime monitoring group InSight. Worse, none of
the engineers have been held for ransom — they’ve just disappeared.
Among them include at least one IBM employee and several communications
technicians from a firm owned by Mexico’s largest construction company.
“The fact that skilled workers have been disappearing in these areas is
no accident,” Felipe Gonzalez, head of Mexico’s Senate Security
Committee, told the website.
“None of the systems engineers who disappeared have been found,”
Gonzalez said. Unlike Colombia, where drug traffickers control large
amounts of territory and can keep hostages for many years,
Mexico’s drug territory is more in flux. “When they need specialists
they catch them, use them, and discard them,” said the father of one
kidnapped engineer.
For at least six years, Mexico’s cartels have relied in part on a
sophisticated radio network to handle their communications. The Zetas
hide radio antennas and signal relay stations deep inside remote and
hard-to-reach terrain, connect them to solar panels, and then link the
facilities to radio-receiving cellphones and Nextel devices. While the
kingpins stay off the network — they use the internet to send messages —
the radio network acts as a shadow communication system for the cartels’ lower-level players and lookouts, and a tool to hijack military radios.
One network spread across northeastern Mexico and dismantled last year included 167 radio antennas alone. As recently as September, Mexican marines found a 295-foot-high transmission tower
in Veracruz state. And while the founding leadership of the Zetas
originated in the Mexican special forces — and who might have had the
know-how to set up a radio system — relatively few of the ex-commando types are still active today. Fist tap Dale.
