Heriberto Lazcano, “El Lazca”: the criminal leader who “reigned” from religion

Part I

The leaders of drug trafficking are convinced that only two people are fit to govern: they and the one from “above”. It is not by chance that they have chosen the cleric as an intermediary in criminal negotiations.

In recent years, the Catholic Church decided to undertake a dangerous crusade: to put peace in hell, even if that means negotiating with criminals. They have sat with them or separately, trying to reconcile different interests.

Over time, drug traffickers also begin to perceive some advantages: they erase and cleanse their image of hired killers with millions of donations.

Leader Zeta, the demon who believed messiah

Heriberto Lazcano, Lazca, Executioner and/or Z-3 (Hidalgo, 1974-Coahuila, 2012) had a thousand and one faces: one for each person who watched. If he was called The Z-3, he had the face of a murderer. If it was Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, one of the 277,000 inhabitants of Pachuca (Hidalgo), it was a Robin Hood.

In the life of this criminal, leader of the Los Zetas cartel, there was a lot of money and a lot of lead. Silver enough to found one of the most bloodthirsty criminal groups in the country and lead to cause thousands of deaths of innocent people in their open war with other criminal organizations.

Although there are more pieces of lead than silver in Lazcano's career, his image was so little banned that, to date, he is still venerated in the city of Pachuca, even there most of his works of charity.

In 2010, Lazcano built the Church of Our Lady of the Lakes, in the Tezontle neighborhood. In this sanctuary, with large windows and orange walls, rests a plaque that pays homage to its benefactor: “John Paul II Catechesis Evangelization Center, donated by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano Lazcano”. Below, Psalm 143 of the Bible: “Lord, hear my prayer, answer my prayers, answer me, you who are faithful and just,” it reads.

Every year on the patron saint festivities of the Church, the most wanted corrido is heard, popularized by the group Invasores de Nuevo León and dedicated to the Zetas, and they also detail flowers placed in honor of the criminal leader.

South of Pachuca and one kilometer from the Church of Our Lady of the Lakes, Heriberto Lazcano built a luxurious tomb, because according to his relatives, man believed in the eternal rest.

Those who visit it in the Ejidal Pantheon San Francisco say that it is a mausoleum that stands out among the other graves.

Nine years after the death of Lazca in the state of Coahuila (in northern Mexico), residents of the Tezontle colony say that the wounds opened by the Los Zetas war continue to bleed the country, but the possibility of healing them is in the Catholic Church.

Heriberto Lazcano, known in the world of the underworld as El Verdugo or Z-3 or, joined the Mexican Army at the age of 17, but at 24, after not having passed out, he joined the drug trafficking as a trigger for the Gulf Cartel, founded by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who recruited deserting military personnel of the Mexican Armed Forces formed its armed arm, Los Zetas, in the late 1990s. In 2003, following the arrest of Cardenas Guillén, the so-called last letter cartel gained independence from the Gulf Cartel and began a war against other rival criminal groups and against the authorities.

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