“Chaparro”, member of the Los Zetas organization, sentenced to 54 years in prison

Olomari Peña Valdivieso, alias Chaparro, 54, member of the Los Zetas cartel, was sentenced to 54 years in prison for the crimes of organized crime and kidnapping.

The Attorney General's Office sentenced Chaparro after finding him guilty of extorting money from businesses, drivers of trucks and pipes, in the municipality of Santa Catarina, Nuevo León. This member of the cartel of the last letter was captured in 2014, when he was holding two people deprived of liberty. The sentence also includes the payment of 4,250 days fine.

The criminal group Los Zetas, today declining in its firepower against other criminal organizations, was born as an armed arm of the Gulf Cartel, which operated in the northern states of the country. In Nuevo León, this cartel worked in the Monterrey area (capital of the state).

The first leader of the Gulf Cartel, Juan García Abrego, was captured on the outskirts of that city. According to the specialized media Insight Crime, its successor, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, was less interested in Monterrey, so he kept his distance and therefore also los Zetas.

However, that changed with the separation of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. The latter cartel is said to have always seen the area that includes the municipalities of Apodaca, Garcia, Escobedo General, Guadalupe, Juarez, Monterrey, San Nicolás de los Garza, San Pedro Garza Garcia, Santa Catarina and Santiago as an opportunity to grow their drug business.

The Zetas, known for imposing new forms of violence, arrived in Nuevo León where they disputed the square against the organization of the Beltrán Leyva, who had then separated from the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Beltrans saw Nuevo León as their refuge. There they co-opted politicians and businessmen, and created complex extortion schemes. Various investigations detail that this way of operating caught the attention of Los Zetas, so they held a truce for both of them to work in the region.

The cartel of the last letter fell after the capture of its leader Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, who inherited the leadership of his nephew, Juan Gerardo Treviño Morales, alias El Huevo, recently deported to the United States.

The arrest of this criminal was carried out on Sunday, March 13 by the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the Attorney General's Office (FGR), the National Intelligence Center and the National Guard (GN).

El Huevo Treviño is singled out as the top chief of the Northeast Cartel (former Zetas) and of its armed arm, the Troop of Hell, with which he maintains a fierce struggle with Gulf Cartel cells, as well as territorial disputes against the Old School Zetas. He has three arrest warrants: one in the state of Tamaulipas for extortion and criminal association, another in the state of Coahuila for intentional homicide and terrorism; and one more for purposes of extradition for conspiracy for drug trafficking and money laundering.

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