Crime Writing

Steve Dudley takes on the Iran-Zetas connection, while I write about the arrest of a Zetas big shot in Saltillo. Also, here's a partial translation of a great report from Excélsior last week about policing in the Jalisco-Zacatecas border region. Highlights from the latter:

The convoy passes through Teul, still enemy territory, when the police radio announces the presence of an “unsavory character.”

“That mother-----er is a lookout, he just left the highway!” The chase immediately begins, adrenaline for some and arrhythmia for others. Police run toward a suburban truck with California license plates that had just been abandoned on a dirt road, the uniformed men point their guns forward and others cover their rear.

No one who doesn’t belong appears. The informant is captured, without a shot, but the revision continues 100 meters away. The man confesses to being an RT (a leader of the lookouts), who says he is from Zacatecas and works for the Zetas because he can’t find work. He, together with his truck, is taken to Guadalajara. The group communicates with other teams and the return trip turns out to be stressful.

One of the officers gets into the armored car with a nervous laugh. It turns out that in the chase, the officer was himself chased by a bull that was loose on the grassland -- an anecdote to break the tension of the moment.