Cowboy Cartel: How FBI busted deadly Mexican gang by tracking their quarter horses
nypost.comvaqueros, are not unlike thoroughbreds. They compete in quarter mile races. Fans bet on outcomes and purses can nip into the millions.
However, corrupting the enterprise were top-tier crooks in Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel.“Those horses led to uncovering extortion, racketeering and kidnapping,” Dan Johnstone, co-director of the new Apple+ documentary “Cowboy Cartel,” which drops today, told The Post. “[The uncovering contributed] to the Zeta’s downfall.”In January 2010, the FBI’s Laredo, Texas, office received a tip the Zetas – then the most violent drug operation in Mexico – were using quarter horses to launder money on their turf in the US.Succeeding through what an official described “total barbarity,” such as leaving 49 headless torsos on a Mexican highway as a warning for anyone who considered crossing them – the Zetas brought gang violence to gut-churning levels.A local police chief in Mexico announced that the cartel did not scare him.
In 24 hours, he was dead.Back in Texas, a North Dallas bricklayer by the name of José Treviño Morales purchased a horse called Tempting Dash, paying a record setting $875,000 at auction, which raised eyebrows.José was the US-based law-abiding brother of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, aka Z-40, known for being the 40th member of the Zetas and its leader.It was one of many horse purchases bankrolled through a flotilla of shell companies loaded with drug money.
Read more on nypost.com