MEXICAN CARTELS INFILTRATE HOUSTON

Recent Arrests In A Mistaken Killing Point To The Perilous Presence
Of Gangs

The order was clear: Kill the guy in the Astros jersey.

But in a case of mistaken identity, Jose Perez ended up dead. The
intended target -- the Houston-based head of a Mexican drug cartel
cell pumping millions of dollars of cocaine into the city -- walked
away.

Perez, 27, was just a working guy, out getting dinner late on a
Friday with his wife and young children at Chilos, a seafood
restaurant on the Gulf Freeway.

His murder and the assassination gone awry point to the perilous
presence of Mexican organized crime and how cartel violence has
seeped into the city.

Arrests came in December when police and federal agents got a break
in the 2006 shooting as they charted the relationship and rivalries
between at least five cartel cells operating in Houston. A rogue's
gallery of about 100 names and mug shots taken at Texas jails and
morgues offers a blueprint for Mexican organized crime.

Houston has long been a major staging ground for importing illegal
drugs from Mexico and shipping them to the rest of the United States,
but a recent Department of Justice report notes it is one of 230
cities where cartels maintain distribution networks and supply lines.

At Chilos, the real crime boss was sitting at another table, as were
two spotters. The hitman waited in the parking lot for Perez to leave
the restaurant.

"I just remember that guy coming up to us and he started shooting and
shooting and shooting and never stopped," said Norma Gonzalez,
Perez's widow. He was hit twice.

"I know they will pay for what they have done, maybe in the next
life," she said of Perez's killers. "I don't know what is going to
happen to them in this life."

Problem 'far-reaching'

The gangster - captured on surveillance video - blended in with other
customers as they gawked at the aftermath. A few months later, he was
dead too, gunned down two miles from the restaurant.

"It is here and it has been here, but people don't want to listen,"
Rick Moreno, a Houston police homicide investigator working with the
Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, said of the cartels' presence
in Houston. "It is so far-reaching)"

Washington is taking notice, even if the toll on U.S. streets is
nowhere near as pervasive as in Mexico, where cartels are locked in a
war against one another and with the government.

"International drug trafficking organizations pose a sustained,
serious threat to the safety and security of our communities," U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder said. "We can provide our communities the
safety and the security that they deserve only by confronting these
dangerous cartels head-on without reservation," he said.

When it comes to tearing into the cartels in Houston, an investigation
later code-named Operation Three Stars got quietly under way three
years ago, as an undercover DEA agent stood in line at a McDonald's in
north Houston. He listened to a drug trafficker using a two-way radio
to set up delivery of $750,000; the man was with his wife and kids,
ordering Happy Meals while making the deal.

Shifting alliances

Since then, more than 70 people in Houston have been prosecuted as a
result of the ongoing operation and more than $5 million has been
seized, as well as about 3,000 pounds of cocaine, according to court
documents and law enforcement officers.

How many people are involved in cartel business is unknown,
authorities said. Alliances shift quickly, as can the need to shut
down to evade the law. Federal agents concede that numbers garnered by
the operation pale compared to the cash and drugs pumped through
Houston, but contend they've headed off countless crimes.

"The public never gets the full picture, they don't understand these
murders, these kidnappings, these violent crimes are directly tied to
these organizations," said Vio-let Szeleczky, spokeswoman for the DEA
regional office in Houston. "A lot of these guys are just real dirtbags."

Hard to spot connections

In the murky underworld, it takes time and luck to connect
dots.

The accused mastermind of the Chilos attack, Jaime Zamora, 38, is
charged with capital murder. He lived modestly, worked for Houston's
Parks and Recreation Department and was a Little League volunteer.
State prosecutor Colleen Barnett said in court that such a profile was
how he avoided detection.

Paul Looney, Zamora's lawyer, contends the government can't prove his
client has ever touched drugs or drug money, or that he is a crime
boss. He added that Zamora had never before been arrested.

"I don't think there is a chance in hell (the prosecutor) is right
about her theory of the case," Looney said.

Court documents indicate Steven Torres, 26, one of the men charged
with helping Zamora with the 2006 killing, confessed "his part
involving arranging the murder." In 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years
probation after being convicted of a murder he committed when he was
16.

His lawyer could not be reached.

Authorities, saying it's tough to spot cartel connections because the
gangsters work in several jurisdictions, point to at least seven
homicides in the Houston area since 2006, as well as nine home
invasions and five kidnappings tied to cartels. They believe there are
many more.

Among the unsolved local killings is the death of Pedro Cardenas
Guillen, 36, whose last name is considered trafficking royalty. He was
shot in the head and left in a ditch off Madden Road, near Fort Bend
County.

His uncle is Osiel Cardenas Guillen, reputed head of the powerful Gulf
Cartel. He was extradited from Mexico and awaits trial in Houston on
charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and threatening to kill
federal agents.

Third attempt succeeded

Other victims of what authorities believe are cartel-related murders
include a husband and wife who were tortured and shot in the head on
Easingwold Drive, in northwest Houston. About 220 pounds of cocaine
were later found in their attic.

Some victims were in the drug business and may have owed money; others
could be relatives of criminals or innocent victims, authorities say.
Santiago "Chago" Salinas, 28, the crime boss who escaped death at
Chilos, was killed six months later.

High on cocaine as he answered the door of a room at the Baymont Inn
on the Gulf Freeway, he was shot three times in the head.

It was the third and final attempt on the life of the man who'd once
been shot in the neck and left for dead in Mexico. His killing may
have been the latest payback between rivals slugging it out.

Chago's brother-in-law was killed in Mexico, as was Zamora's younger
brother, who was known as "Danny Boy" and who was a lieutenant in a
trafficking organization, according to authorities. Danny Boy's boss,
a major player in the Sinaloa cartel, also was murdered in Mexico.

Survivors remember

Those who survive the wrath of cartel gangsters don't
forget.

"I thought I was going to die for sure," recalled David DeLeon, a
used-car dealer who was kidnapped on Airline Drive and severely beaten
while being held for ransom, also in 2006. He was rescued by Houston
police, but not before he was punched, kicked and thrown across a room
so much that his face was unrecognizable.

Authorities say the kidnappers were low-ranking thugs working for a
cartel cell.

In another instance, men armed with assault rifles attacked a Houston
home. The resident used a handgun to kill one and wound another before
the survivors left.

Norma Gonzalez, whose husband was killed at Chilos, said she believes
he used his body to shield his 4-year-old daughter and infant son.
Leaning over her husband in the parking lot, she whispered,
"Everything is going to be OK."

He died minutes later.