'Comandante Tornado': What Crimes Did The CJNG Leader Commit And How Many Years Will He Spend In Prison?

 "Char" for Borderland Beat 

This article was translated and reposted from El Financiero 

WRITTEN BY: JUAN CARLOS HUERTA 

JUNE 28, 2024

Cesar Cazarin Molina, also known as 'el comandante Tornado', 'el Tornado', 'el señor de los Vientos', 'el Tanque', or 'El Matazetas', faces several trials related to his high-ranking militancy in the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG).

He is identified as a close associate of Nemesio Ocegueda Cervantes, 'El Mencho', founder of the criminal organization. He also faces proceedings in defense of his assets, which the federal justice system intends to secure, and which are believed to be worth around 20 million pesos.

He was sentenced to 60 years in prison for crimes such as kidnapping, carrying a firearm without a license, carrying a firearm and possession of cartridges for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces. Along with him, some of his companions received sentences:

• Domingo Medina Díaz, alias 'El Mingo', or 'El Brother', is considered his right-hand man, and his first bodyguard.
• José Antonio Godínez Antonio 'El Gudy'.
• Héctor Jesús De La Cruz Juan 'El Teto'.
• Wilfrido Vázquez Gutiérrez 'El Will'.
• Jesús Arcadio Sánchez Aizpuro, known as 'R'.
• José Fidel Martínez Soto, alias 'El Chapo' or 'El Poni'.
• José Morales Ramírez 'El Pepe' or 'El Peña'.

The facts for which they were accused occurred in October 2012, in the Miguel de la Madrid neighborhood, in Zapopan, where a person was kidnapped.

Comandante Tornado' was released from prison on at least two occasions until his final apprehension in 2015. By then he was held in Cefereso 9 Norte, in Ciudad Juarez Chihuahua, along with three of his alleged accomplices, who were arrested in the Hacienda La Candelaria neighborhood, municipality of Tlajomulco Jalisco, while they were drunk and playing soccer.

The so-called 'Lord of the Winds' went through several courts where he continued to disturb the order, for example in the extinct CEFERESO 2 of Puente Grande Jalisco, he kept under threat not only the security and custody personnel of that place, but also the former director, Jeztael Elena Martinez Cisneros, who refused to be bribed. His subordinates always supported him: 'El Mingo', 'El Rayas', and 'El Sopi', who exercised control over inmates and custody personnel.

The high-security prison in Jalisco was then ordered closed and the so-called 'Matazetas', his accomplices, and 380 highly dangerous inmates were transferred in a surprise operation deployed by agents of the National Guard and the Secretariat of the Navy, aboard two Boeing 727 airplanes, two Black Hawk helicopters, 15 buses and dozens of pickup trucks and armored cars to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (Cefereso) 17 in Buenavista Michoacán, where he also did his business and even planned to escape.

In February 2022, he was separated from his subordinates and was moved to another prison, then his accomplices threatened the director of security, Alejandro Martínez Cisneros, and the general director of the penitentiary, which was also closed months later.

Comandante 'Tornado' fears for his assets

At the moment, there are ongoing proceedings for forfeiture of ownership in the only court of the matter in Mexico City, against real estate assets considered property of Cesar Cazarin; this is the case of two residences located in the La Rioja subdivision, in addition to another in the Cortijo de San Agustin subdivision, both in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Jalisco, valued at around 25 million pesos. A legal fight against the seizures decreed by the federal justice system is being maintained.

On March 21, 2010, members of the Ninth Military Region captured Cazarin and his team in a drug lab in Cocula Jalisco, but months later he was released. On July 10, 2013, he was arrested in the Bugambilias subdivision, under his identity as Víctor Hugo Delgado Rentería, nicknamed 'El Tornado', 'El Comandante Tormenta', or 'El Frijol', then he was imprisoned in the Federal Center for Social Readaptation Number One, Altiplano, in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico, but he was released again.

Source: EL FINANCIERO

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Counter-Offensive: Zetas In The Northeast

After losing several urban cells to the Gulf Cartel, the new leadership of Los Zetas rushed in to fill the gaps in order to organize a counteroffensive around all of northeastern México.  They turned to hiring very young hitmen, sending them from San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas to Nuevo León and Coahuila as reinforcements.  Nevertheless, governors Rodrigo Medina and Rubén Moreira announced that they have managed to reduce crime.

Reynosa, Tamaulipas.- Los Zetas are distributing dozens of hitmen throughout plazas all over the northeast, either to strengthen their control or to recover lost territory.  This is the case for some municipalities in the metropolitan area of Monterrey seized by the Gulf Cartel.

“In recent days they arrived in Nuevo León, coming from San Luis Potosí, around 40 trucks with armed men.  They traveled through dirt roads in order to not be detected”, a federal agent who requested anonymity reported to the magazine Proceso.

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Cadereyta massacre was part of Los Zetas Mothers Day plot

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

The 49 individuals found butchered on a remote section of highway east of Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon Sunday may have been the victims of a Los Zetas plot for a spectacular Mother's Day massacre, according to information taken from Mexican press accounts, private emails and other sources.

Since late April the Los Zetas criminal gang has been under immense pressure from an alliance between the Gulf cartel, the Los Zetas' mortal rival and the Sinaloa drug cartel.  That alliance was formalized sometime last year, and its existence was revealed following the capture of Victor Manuel Felix Felix in Tabasco state.

Victor Manuel Felix Felix is the brother in law to Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzman Loera AKA El Chapo, and was also chief financial officer for the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as the Pacifico cartel.  In Felix Felix's possession were documents which indicated that an alliance between the two groups had been formalized and that the Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel would combine their efforts to the east coast for the transshipment of drugs north to the United States.

That alliance was a formalization of what had already taken place in the fall of 2010, indicated by a fax sent to numerous Mexican news organizations which threatened 11 more car bombs like the one which was detonated  in Zuazua, Nuevo Leon in December 2010 if authorities did nothing to stop Los Zetas' kidnapping operations in the state.

We now know that Los Zetas were during that time, indeed kidnapping bus passengers in Linares, which is in eastern Nuevo Leon and in San Fernando in central Tamaulipas state.

The San Fernando kidnappings and murders led to the discovery of one of the largest mass graves in modern Mexican history with a total of 193 individuals found dead in hidden mass graves in the spring and summer of 2011.  Uncredited reports at the time said that Los Zetas hijacked buses, raped and killed female passengers and then held tournaments to see who would live to become shooters for Los Zetas and who would die.

Later news reports said that Los Zetas operatives in San Fernando became aware that the Gulf Cartel was bringing new shooters up from southern Mexico and that provided the impetus for the hijackings.

The increased pressure placed on Los Zetas came in late March of 2012, when as many as 13 individuals said to be Los Zetas were killed and dismembered, their body parts placed on display along with a narcomanta, which challenged Los Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and Nuevo Laredo chief Miguel Treviño Morale AKA Z40.  The message said, absurdly, that El Chapo would conduct a clean campaign to rid the city of Los Zetas.

It was later reported that the 13 dead were in fact not criminal gang members but random individuals who had been kidnapped and killed for the purpose of terrorizing local criminal groups.

Since that time, several similar events have taken place, most, though not all, in Nuevo Laredo, which is considered to be Los Zetas territory.

And Los Zetas have responded in kind, killing and butchering at least 10 individuals in Sinaloa state, the home turf for the Sinaloa cartel, as well as conducting their own operations in alliance with Beltran-Leyva and Juarez criminal groups against Sinaloa cartel groups in Choix, in the sierras of eastern Sinaloa state earlier in May.  Those gunfights ended with 57 dead including 35 in intergang firefights.

In April, 14 unidentified individuals said to be members of Los Zetas were found in Nuevo Laredo, butchered and stuffed into an SUV, it said by Los Matazetas, said to be aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel, and based in Veracruz state.

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Matazetas

This crime scene had all the trademarks of narco style execution. Executions in Mexico are common now days, in fact we could fill page after page of such brutality on this blog but this one had a characteristic not seen before.

The "who's" and "why's."

Right after a crack-down from the Mexican army against the armed body of the Gulf cartel the Zetas, three bodies of men executed gangland style were discovered along with a "narcomensaje."

"We're the new group of matazetas and we are against the kidnappings and extortions, and we will fight against them in every state to clean up Mexico," read the message.

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