Prison authorities in the border state of Tamaulipas covered up the murder in prison of a founding member of Los Zetas. That long-time cartel operator had been a former member of Mexico’s military and had special forces training.
The murder took place late last week at the Tamaulipas State Prison in Nuevo Laredo when two inmates with the Cartel Del Noreste murdered Ciro “Cirilo” Perez Gonzalez who was better known by the name Z-37 or Perro de Evelio. As with most violent crimes in Tamaulipas, state authorities worked to minimize available information about the case as a way to give the appearance of peace.
The man known as Z-37 was one of the last remaining members of Los Zetas who joined the criminal organization as part of a second generation that came soon after the start of the organization. At that time, the group was only an enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel.
Law enforcement sources revealed that Z-37 was originally recruited by the group’s supreme leader Heriberto “Z-3” Lazcano to help expand the criminal enterprise in its drug and human trafficking operations throughout Mexico.
Like most of the original members, Perez Gonzalez was a former member of Mexico’s military who had special forces training but deserted in 1994 to become an organized crime enforcer. After joining Los Zetas, he became one of Lazcano’s most trusted allies and from 2012 to 2015 was the regional boss for Los Zetas in the states of Guanajuato and part of San Luis Potosi and the northern part of Veracruz.
After his arrest in 2015, Perez Gonzalez spent several years in a state prison in Oaxaca but was released on April 10. Agents with the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office were there at the time of his release and rearrested him on various state charges he had pending in that border state/ Those charges related to the murder of one woman and an attack on a second one.
On Wednesday, shortly after 11 p.m., he went into the Tamaulipas State Prison in Nuevo Laredo. However, authorities placed him in an office instead of taking him to the general population because his attorneys had filed an injunction against his arrest. It was inside that office, that 39-year-old Ernesto Alonso Garcia and 33-year-old Victor Morelos Soto stabbed him more than 60 times using prison shanks. Both inmates are known members of the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas — sworn enemies of the original Zetas.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” from Tamaulipas.