Los Zetas
44
MENTIONS
12
EPISODES
12
PODCASTS
Search complete. 44 mentions across 12 episodes found for "Los Zetas".
Sep 27, 2026
Derek Maltz Sr.GUEST
And on that plane, there were several very high-level Mexican bad guys that they removed from Mexico and sent them to America to face justice.
Derek Maltz Sr.GUEST
And on that plane were the leaders of Los Zetas cartel, Z-40, Z-42.
Derek Maltz Sr.GUEST
They are the most treacherous and most...
Derek Maltz Sr.GUEST
Dangerous guys I've seen over the years.
BrewHOST
Through it, Miriam heard him referred to as Samad.
BrewHOST
Sama claimed he was a commander of the Zetas cartel.
BrewHOST
For a price, he said, he could help bring Karen back.
BrewHOST
Miriam didn't trust him.
BrewHOST
For the rest of my life, with the time that I have, I'm going to find the people who did this to my daughter, and I'm going to make them pay, Miriam swore.
BrewHOST
That's when she began making a list, and the first name on it was Sama.
BrewHOST
It was around this time that the Zetas' cartel targeted yet another member of Miriam Rodriguez's family.
BrewHOST
This time, it was Azalea's husband, Ernesto.
Joe HefferonGUEST
I mean, they were certainly famous for being brutal.
Joe HefferonGUEST
I mean, they've sort of, the Zetas and, this grew out of Beltran Leyva originally.
Joe HefferonGUEST
That's how, that's where the murder of Beltran Leyva started.
Joe HefferonGUEST
is really what got El Chapo involved in this thing.
Joe HefferonGUEST
But the Zetas and then the CJNG have really gotten a lot more violent.
Joe HefferonGUEST
The Zetas were ex-military that grew as an offshoot of, I believe, CJNG.
Joe HefferonGUEST
I might have that exactly wrong.
Joe HefferonGUEST
But the Zetas were definitely a lot more violent, and CJNG is now extremely violent.
Katarina SzulcGUEST
... and new ones are created.
Katarina SzulcGUEST
I mean, like Los Zetas do not exist anymore, but-
Shawn RyanHOST
Those are the guys that were the all special ops guys-
Katarina SzulcGUEST
Yeah
speaker_5AUDIENCE
Mexico has these security zones where either local families, local cartels have taken over roadblocks and security in and out of those areas.
speaker_5AUDIENCE
Because quite frankly, it's when you have the federales and the CIA in those areas, that's where it's the most dangerous, right? where they're putting the fucking cartel del golfos against the Zetas.
speaker_5AUDIENCE
Like I'm talking around Tamali Paz and Chihuahua and Coahuila.
speaker_5AUDIENCE
So like Ciudad Juarez, you know, probably one of the bloodiest border crossings.
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
Yes.
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
The one that dropped yesterday was Inside Mexico's Modern Cartel Era: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, and the Cartel Wars.
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
And, uh, we're already at what? 5,000 views-ish? Yeah, pretty much.
Bubba the Love Sponge ClemHOST
Yeah.
Robert MazurGUEST
Yeah, you know, those 49 people, it was the town of San Juan, about 100 miles west of Brownsville.
Robert MazurGUEST
49 people, 43 of them were men and six were women whose heads were chopped off, hands and feet were chopped off and their bodies thrown in the streets as a billboard message to those who were still alive that this would happen to them if they weren't loyal to Los Zetas.
Robert MazurGUEST
So that kind of violence, unfortunately, goes on more often than we ever even hear about because we hear about how many tens of thousands of people have been murdered in the drug world in Mexico, but we don't hear very often about how many people go missing which is also in the huge tens of thousands.
Robert MazurGUEST
So it definitely is a terrible situation.
18 MINS LATER
Robert MazurGUEST
And what are you going to do? It's like a story that I heard about people who run an elderly couple that ran a house of exchange in Mexico, Casa de Cambio.
Robert MazurGUEST
They were honest, God-fearing people who were trying to work an honest living.
Robert MazurGUEST
And a guy showed up in a suit and he said, you know, I'm coming here to give you information about from, and I forget which cartel, but let's say Los Zetas, we are offering you silver or lead.
Robert MazurGUEST
You can either get paid to move our money through your business or we will kill you.
PeteGUEST
So 30 of them jumped ship.
PeteGUEST
And they become the nucleus of what became Los Zetas, which was the paramilitary wing for the Gulf cartel.
PeteGUEST
So that 30 man group, they didn't recruit several hundred additional Mexican military personnel.
PeteGUEST
But now you've got 30 special forces, 300 military personnel.
Alan CrossHOST
When the smoke cleared, it became obvious that this wasn't just some random shooting.
Alan CrossHOST
The Blue Parrot had been targeted by the Zetas drug cartel.
Alan CrossHOST
Within 24 hours, banners started appearing around Playa del Carmen.
Alan CrossHOST
They named Philip Pulitano, the organizer of BPM, as someone who didn't fall in line with whatever the cartel was demanding.
Alan CrossHOST
The attack was retribution for not paying protection.
Alan CrossHOST
The Zetas cartel had apparently been squeezing money out of BPM for years.
Alan CrossHOST
But in 2017, the festival said enough was enough and would not pay the new increased prices.
Alan CrossHOST
There was never any official confirmation of that, but everyone somehow seemed to know.
M.P. PellicerHOST
The violent underworld of Mexico's drug cartels, few stories have sparked as much fascination or skepticism as that of an alleged female assassin known only as Juana N., nicknamed La Peque Sicaria.
M.P. PellicerHOST
According to widely circulated reports, she worked for Los Zetas, one of Mexico's most feared criminal organizations, and later confessed to crimes so grotesque that even veteran cartel killers supposedly recalled from them.
M.P. PellicerHOST
But every detail is true remains an enduring mystery.
M.P. PellicerHOST
Unlike many infamous cartel figures whose crimes appear in court records and official investigations, La Peque exists largely through anonymous reports.
M.P. PellicerHOST
At 15, she became pregnant by a man more than twice her age.
M.P. PellicerHOST
Determined to support herself and her son, she turned to prostitution.
M.P. PellicerHOST
There she met members of Los Zetas, including the cartel sicarios, professional assassins who nicknamed her La Peque in reference to her youth rather than her size.
M.P. PellicerHOST
Joining Los Zetas.
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