Mexico Trucker Online

Our friend Sean Mattson, Mexico correspondent for the San Antonio Express News, left this interesting tidbit on his blog this morning, concerning the severed head found on a car in Monterrey this past week.

Honor amongst thieves perhaps? Who knows, but I got a chuckle out of the thing.

Head left on car with warning for wannabe Zetas; reassurance for businessmen

Kidnapping a guy, chopping his head off and leaving it on top of a car is sure one heck of a way to send a message.

Just in case the point wasn’t clear, the suspected killers of a person believed to be Erick Alejandro Alvarado Munãoz left a note with the head of the latest killing to rattle Monterrey.

According to media accounts, the grammatically challenged missive read:

“This is what happens to the people who pass themselves off for Zetas. Swindlers, crooks, kidnappers and people please report them without fear. This is the head of La Gata, attentively Gulf Cartel Nuevo León division. P.S. We don’t do anything to businessmen. Don’t be crybabies.”

The Zetas are the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, which runs the narcotics business along much of the Texas border. “La Gata” is Alvarado’s nickname. He reportedly led a gang dedicated to large-scale robberies of vehicles from auto agencies in Monterrey, the big city in the border state of Nuevo León.

The note, if authentic, would suggest Alvarado was or passed himself off as a Zeta. It seems the Zetas are worried about their image — beheading enemies, cool; kidnapping and otherwise hassling the private sector, not cool.

Authorities haven’t said much.

I’m not sure if Monterrey’s private sector was reassured by the message.

— Sean Mattson

It is auspicious in light of the fact that several blog, such as THIS ONE or spreading hype and hysteria about Americans being targeted for assassination and kidnapping by the hundreds, which by the way, is not true. If you come to Mexico, or live in Mexico and go about your business without sticking your nose in others affairs, you’ll be fine.

The problems arise from the wannabes, the wannabe drug traffickers, the wannabe tuff boys.