SUMMARY
The outbreak of fighting between different drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico can be understood against the background of changes in the Mexican political landscape during the last decades. During the 1980s, there was a loose network of drug smugglers controlling their own "plaza" for drug trafficking. Governmental authority was highly centralized under PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule and by bribing high officials, the drug smugglers could control their businesses without getting interrupted by the authorities. When single-party rule started to give way to local opposition these networks and relationships were transformed, to the advantage of some actors but to the disadvantage of others. The drug cartels started to fight each other for control over territory and previous alliances fell apart.
Los Zetas, with its origin in the Gulf Cartel, had experienced few instances of infighting within the cartel compared to its parent organization. However, clashes broke out when a part of Los Zetas, led by Ivan “El Taliban” Velazquez Caballero also called “Z-50”, splintered and started to fight the main group of the cartel in 2012. Velazquez Caballero accused one of Los Zetas highest-ranking leaders Miguel “Z-40” Ángel Treviño Morales, of having betrayed several other Los Zetas leaders in order to increase his own power. Treviño Morales had enjoyed the support of the then leader of Los Zetas, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, and was one of his closest associates.
Clashes took place in several different states, such as San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, where the two groups fought for the control of different drug trafficking routes through Mexico into the United States. Velazquez Caballero was arrested on 26 September 2012 and his faction announced that they were to join Los Zeta’s main enemy, the Gulf Cartel, the same week. Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano was killed by the Mexican Navy in early October 2012 and Treviño Morales took over the leadership of Los Zetas.
The non-state conflict between Los Zetas and Los Zetas – Velazquez Caballero faction was first included in UCDP data in 2012.
