07/04/11— Federal police detained Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, alias “El Mamito,” who is the presumed leader and one of the founders of the organized crime group, Los Zetas, on Sunday. He is one of the most wanted men by both Mexican and American authorities, so much so that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was offering a reward of $5 millon dollars for his arrest. He was detained in Atizapán de Zaragoza in the state of Mexico when he traveled with a police officer who had offered him protection during a visit to his mother’s house in Campeche.
Rejón Aguilar was allegedly the third person in command of Los Zetas behind Heriberto Lazcano, alias El Lazca, and Miguel Ángel Treviño, alias Z-40. Ramón Pequeño, the chief of the Division of Intelligence of the Federal Police, stated that El Mamito is thought to have had a part in the February assassination of Jaime Zapata, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) agent, among a number of other high profile crimes.
According to Univision, Rejón Aguilar was part of the Mexican army in 1993 and three years later he joined the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). After three years with EZLN, he quit in 1999 to form Los Zetas with 14 other soldiers, which originally operated as the military arm of the Gulf Cartel but later split to form its own organization. Los Zetas is known to be one of the bloodiest and most violent of all of the cartels that operate in Mexico.
Sources:
“Cae presunto líder fundador de Los Zetas.” El Universal. July 4, 2011.
“Capturan al tercer jefe de Los Zetas en México.” Prensa Latina. July 4, 2011.
“Cayó ‘El Mamito’ jefe de Los Zetas, vinculado a crimen del agente Zapata.” Univision. July 4, 2011.
