The Underworld Podcast - Mexico's New Ultraviolent Narco-Terrorists: The CDN

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

From the ashes of Los Zetas rose the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast Cartel, a brutal splinter group led by the infamous Treviño Morales family and headquartered in the blood-soaked border city of Nuevo Laredo. Known for their military tactics, narco-tanks, and paramilitary wing “Tropa del Infierno” aka the Hell Troop, CDN wages war not only against rivals but against the Mexican state itself. This episode dives into their origins, their iron grip on smuggling routes, and the savage methods they use to maintain power. From public executions to armored convoys that look straight out of Mad Max, CDN represents the next evolution of cartel warfare. If you want to understand how modern Mexican cartels have evolved, start here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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on the border with Texas. A few dozen Mexican friends, soldiers, backed by a Black Hawk military helicopter, and multiple armored vehicles fan out. Half a dozen agencies in Mexico are involved in this operation, and they've received intel that the cartel boss they're looking for is there. His name is Juan Harardo Trevino Chavez, otherwise known as El Juevo, the A. He's been the boss of the Northeast Cartel, otherwise known as the CDN or Cartel de Noreste for six years. They've become one of the most violent and brutal cartels in all of Mexico, eclipsing

even their predecessors, the feared and notorious psychos known as Las Zetas, the Mexican Special Forces soldiers turned Cartel Sacarios. The CDN formed around 2015, when the Zetas cartel fractured into multiple factions. Leading the way was the members of the Trevino Morales family and their loyal followers, who had clashed with the faction known as the old-school Zetas. The CDN, though, has continued the acid-dissolving and blood-soaked corpse legacy of the Zetas like none other. They've also followed the path of the Zetas when it comes to the emergence of cartel enforcement wings that function more like paramilitary organizations than gangbangers. For the CDN, their shock troops are known as El Tropic de Inferino, the Hell Troop or the Troop from Hell.

Juan Alberto Sidio, a Mexican crime writer and security analyst, calls them the most most bloodthirsty group of Sicarios or pitmen in all of the Mexican criminal gangs. Back to Nueva Laredo, now in the early morning hours Monday, March 14th. When new spreads of their boss being grabbed, the Hell Troop was no time. They've been preparing for this day for a while. They even have an instruction manual for what to do in these situations. In short, it's violence against anyone and everyone. They start attacking everywhere in Nueva Laredo, looking to parallel.

the city. They attack military barracks and police and create blockades of burning vehicles. It's not a cartel attack, as much as it is an insurgency. They even send gunmen to attack the U.S. consulate building in the city. The consulate issues a statement that morning at 8 a.m., quote, due to the reports of gunfire overnight near the U.S. consulate and its locations throughout Nueva Laredo, U.S. government employees have been advised to continue to shelter in place. U.S. citizens should avoid the areas or continue to shelter in place. The consulate is going to remain closed for more than a month afterward. Meanwhile, gunfire echoes throughout the city, so much so that it's heard across the border in Laredo, Texas.

700 members of the Mexican military and four additional helicopters are rushed into the city to calm things down. There's reported 30 clashes with the Mexican army. The Mexican authorities waste no time getting El Juevao. out of the city. He's transported by helicopter 100 miles away under escort from the National Guard and the Air Force before being moved to Mexico City. And within 24 hours of that, he's deported to the U.S. as he's actually an American citizen. In the aftermath, the CDN keeps trucking along, maintaining control over one of, if not the most valuable smugging route into the U.S., moving fentanyl, Coke and people north, and guns and weapons south.

Writes Owen Grillo's crash-out media of the CDN, quote, it's a significant force at a regional level and makes incursions into other battlegrounds across Mexico. In a sense, it represents key aspects of what cartels have morphed into, paramilitary organized crime networks with a range of rackets, fears control of a local fiefdom, but sprawling tentacles that stretch out and cross the border. This is the story of the Northeast cartel, and this is the Underworld podcast. Welcome back to the Underworld podcast, the only podcast that covers international organized crime that's worth a damn.

Hosted by two journalists who have traveled all over the world reporting on this sort of thing and now bring you stories from all around the world, past, present, and future. My name is Danny Gold. I'm joined by my co-host, Sean Williams, who is headed to Japan very, very soon from now, very shortly after this, to hang out with Yakuza and get. had hammered with Sowery Man, I think. Is that right? Yeah, that's what I do normally. But yeah, I'm off to Japan in October. I think I'm doing like Tokyo, Kobe and Hiroshima. So if anyone want to send me Rekis, I need like good ramen, karaoke bars and used golf club stores. Maybe a tattoo is. Screw it. Why not? Yeah, sure. Go for it. Dude. Get a, get the bamboo thing. I have one of those. It looks terrible. Anyway, um, you guys may have noticed, uh, we're coming to you

from my apartment, which is unfortunate, but our friends at Spotify. I didn't know it's actually. It looks exactly like the Spotify studio. Yeah, like Spotify studios. So it's a little low rent, but hopefully you guys will forgive us. And as always,

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And Graham Baker, who helped a ton with research for this. Yeah, shout out to those guys. We probably don't say enough, but we really appreciate everyone that chips in. It really helps us make everything. And it's, yeah, it's pretty incredible that we kept going now for like, what, over five, five and a half years. It's nuts. So thank you guys.

close to five years, I think, in like a month or two. But we couldn't have done it without. Thank you. Yeah, without our friends at Spotify and Patreon and you guys helping us out. But yeah, this is just a straight up cartel history one, man. You know, no fancy character arcs, no floored pros, but you know, it's perfect to do out of your crummy apartment. But, you know, middle of August, dog geez is summer.

We're still popping out weekly content. So kind of, kind of just is what it is. What is a dog day? What is that phrase? I don't even know. I don't know where it comes from. from, but it just means like kind of like, you know, those days in August where it's like 105 degrees and you don't want to do anything and everyone just kind of give it up on life.

I'm scared of turning the camera around, but I'm looking out the window and it's not, it's not that here. It's pretty, it's like, I don't know, a cat day is bad. Anyway, the Northeast cartel or cartel then arreste. CDN is interesting, right? It's not a well-known cartel, I would say. It's not nearly as big as the remnants of Sinolawa or Halifah. ago new generation, but it does represent something of a new phenomenon and it does come from

the Zetas, which I think everyone knows about. And it does do some of the most heinous stuff that you can imagine, befitting of a group that made up the more brutal faction of the Zetas, who were the more brutal faction of a Gulf cartel. And I think kind of, you know, there everyone's sort of go to when it comes to talking about like the, they're just horrific things that the cartels I've been doing the past 10, 15 years. And these guys are the worst part of that. So, you know, that that's who they are. The truth is, though, that most cartels, you know, don't really exist, kind of like they used to, these massive groups for the most part.

You know, many of them were federations that kind of start with, but they obviously had leadership hierarchies. But right now, you know, people talk about Sinolaoa. There is no Sinolaoa, right? The two major figures in the Senilea cartel for what, 25 years, their kids are fighting each other. So there's no such thing really is the Sinolaa cartel. There's just the factions of it.

All these big cartels, right? The Gulf Cartel has like five different factions. doesn't really exist anymore. They split off, they splinter, they form different factions, they fight each other, they reunite, they fight each other again. I mean, it's, you know, impossible amounts of money and violent psychopaths do not give you stable businesses or alliances. So we actually have to start the story of the Northeast cartel with the Zetas, everyone's favorite

lunatics, who ratcheted up cartel brutality to a level never really seen before while also ratcheting up the sort of military proficiency of cartels to a level that also was never really seen before. And I'm going to try to avoid a deep dive here. But if you're interested in the whole thing, the complete rise and fall of the Zetas for a full episode, we did want to ways back. I think if you search Underworld Zetas, it'll definitely come up. But here's our bridge virgin, right? The Zetas, their first in elite unit of Sicario is for the Gulf cartel. They're formed by a guy who was a Mexican special forces soldier who had worked with the cartel for years, you know, just the usual taking bribes and looking the other way, tipping them off,

before he like officially gets recorded to join. And these real deal specials, forces military, right? He had all sorts of counterinsurgency training, Intel stuff, real elite combat unit stuff. He became known as Z1 after his radio call sign. And he was basically told to form the sort of cartel A team by the leader of the Gulf cartel, which he did by loring away around 38 to 40 members of the Mexican military special forces and they all adapt their sort of code names. Z1, Z2, Z3, yada, yada, makes it easier for me because I don't have to like butcher the pronunciations of their names. From there, the Zedis grow.

They recruit from the ranks of police, other gangsters, military, and they train these recruits and impart on them all that sort of military knowledge and training that they have, right? And they're basically the arm wing of the Gulf cartel. They're enforcers, which is one of, if not, I think, might be the oldest Mexican cartel, but we did actually, again, just do an episode on them a few months back, I think, right? Yeah, I think any group whose name ends cartel.

I think we've done a show on them by this point, except, except the biggest cartel of them all, Danny, you know, those crooks in Congress. Crooks in Congress. Yeah. Did I get that right? That was right. Yeah. Yeah, that was good.

It was solid, dude. I mean, I guess we've said this like a thousand times, but if you want to learn about the Zetas, you should also watch zero, zero, zero, which is like a dramatized version of their eyes, which is also an unreal show. Yeah, really, really well done, even though the guy who wrote the book that it's based on is a plagiarist. But, you know, that's, it is what it is. He's also a little past this, too.

So give him crack. it. But yeah, you know, I think there's still a couple, uh, the family, Mitchell O'Con, we haven't done that, which I think would be interesting. Yeah. And then that sort of group that splintered off, I think that formed originally from like various cartels to fight this day. There's cartel Unitos, I believe it's called. But are they the auto defense us guys or is that, am I getting my... I think La Familia Mitchell Khan started as auto defenses. But of course, I mean, the same story happens every time, right? They start as that and then they go into, like, ooh, money. a cartel themselves. But I think Unitos,

cartels, Unitos, was not auto defenses. They were just, like, other cartels sent different guys to form up together to fight Los Zetas and, like, what was the 2009, 2010, when they were just really dominating everything. Are they the, they did Matazetas? Or is that am I getting them wrong? Is that C.J. NG?

I get confused. I get confused. Yeah, settle down. But the people who don't get confused, I think, and we use for a lot of these sources for these episodes are people like the guys at Inside Crime border what is it border beat um bay info bay whatever that one's called yeah yeah they're great um even though the name sounds weird to people uh and then people like owen grillo who has crash out media who are fantastic and you should subscribe to louis chapero i mean me and shan talk about this too

like we're not experts in cartel stuff we just kind of like can put stuff together well these guys deal with the nitty gritty every day they know who's taking control of which plaza what's happening here, all the leaders. They're the people if you want that day-to-day info you really want to follow. Yeah, but watch out, well, because I'm coming to Latin America next year, so we'll have some fun then. The Zetas become notorious pretty quickly, right? With the military training, they're more like a paramilitary organization than a group of gangbangers, right? They're not holding a gun sideways or doing sloppy drybys. They will run a full-fledged op like no one really had before in the Mexico cartel landscape. They were willing to go to war and engage and shoot

out with Mexican soldiers and police and all that instead of just kind of running. I mean, we are talking pitched battles, not quick hits or anything like that, and they really kind of change the game. And they also bring with them just a penchant for absurd brutality. I mean, look, cartels were always violent, but the heads getting cut off, bodies from overpasses, vats of acid, torture, they really bring it to a new level. Like, that's part of their legacy. Z1, the founder, he gets killed in a shootout.

Z3 soon takes over. and he's going to stay on the top for the better part of a decade. And the Zetas just go full on, right? They set up training camps for 15-year-olds to turn them into, you know, psycho killers, kish-kouche, all that. They recruit from military, police, prisons, anyone who has a pension for serious violence and knows how to use a gun and is willing to learn.

They're bad guys. They're not good, even for the cartels. They get known for this sadistic torture, like I said, the acid baths, the decapitation. And this is all, mind you, before that stuff was like kind of staples of cartel They do the kind of sick stuff that Taylor Sheridan would make up for, what is it, Sicario Part 3. And then they blaze a path of-

Pari-Carrio Part 3. Sicario Part 2 was bad enough. Yeah, it was not. It was not good. They blaze a path of destruction. And of course, they're still under the Gulf cartel at this time. This is the 2000s. They go to war of Sinolaoa.

They go Chapo and Mayo around 2004. They start assassinating police and police officials. They are taking everyone on. And that war starts in Nueva, of Laredo right across the border from Laredo, Texas and spreads out all over. We actually go into it a bit more in another episode, the one I did on Acapulco where I talked about the reporting I had done there and the violence of that city, which kind of, like, if you think about it, it really is kind of like a, what's the word I'm looking for, like foreshadowing

kind of the rest of Mexico because Acapulco became a place where there wasn't a dominant cartel after a while. They were just like marauding gangs. And that's when it became the murder capital city of Mexico. which, you know, it's like, um, whackamol, like different cities pop up here and there. But Acapulco, even though it was this like beautiful vacation spot, just became this place of, of no king. So it just was like warring factions.

And that's part of that. I did a story there for PBS News Hour, I think, in 2017 or 2018. And that was kind of, it was about the American government issuing a travel advisory for Acapulco. So I feel like that's kind of what we're seeing now in Mexico. And this is part of that story. In 2007, there's a narco peace treaty. And the Gulf cartel slash Zeta is they keep Nueva Laredo and parts of East Texas, which is actually the busiest land crossing from Mexico to America for truck cargo traffic,

surprisingly, which I would have guessed Juarez or Tijuana, but it kind of shows what I fucking know. Yeah, I mean, just a few bucks on the Patreon, and I guess the guys could send you out back on your horse to the west, and you could go do some reporting in Nuevo Dorado. That would actually be sick. Imagine a doco from there that we could do for the show. people doing it for sure um yeah we'd have to have 10 times the patron we do to make it worthwhile

but yeah uh you know you got to pay for security down there man like you can't mess around but um what that means is that it's an incredibly valuable piece of land slash city to control and all the cartels wanted but the zeta specifically they really have it as a stronghold by 2010 though the zetas have become like ungovernable right they're clashing with the gulf leadership and they break off and form their own thing. No more Gulf cartel enforcement wing. And at this point, you know, without the Gulf elders kind of holding them back, the Zetas go off the rails. They kill 72 migrants for barely any reason, which sickens even other cartel bosses.

I mean, if those guys are like, what are you doing, then come on, you know? Another massacre occurs in 2011 where the Zetas hijacked passenger buses and kill 193 people. By this point, the other cartel bosses across the country are fed up to the point where they want. want to do something. Yeah, I think this is actually a scene from zero zero, zero, right? It's like it's stomach churning. It's like full terrorism, I guess. Did you watch it today?

Like, I have no recollection of most of the- I just remember that scene being like horrific. They just like arbitrarily pull people off a bus and they shoot like 50 people did. Yeah. That's what they were doing. Yeah. People both in both like the Mexican security services and the other cartels, they see the Zetas now as basically like an anti-social movement that just needs to be wiped out.

rival cartels start leaving messages on banners and posting on websites that a national effort needs to be made to eliminate them and then all hell breaks loose the military other cartels everyone is going to war against the zeta six hour shootouts in the streets there's 15,000 cartel murders in 2010 and during the height of the zeta sinola feud there was only like 1500 to 2500 a year the zeta was meanwhile they're also diversifying their portfolio right not just drugs but extortion kidnapping stealing and smuggling fuel, they want it all. And despite all this chaos, they're actually at their highest point in like 2010, 2011, 2012. But in February of 2011, the Zetas make a fatal mistake. They gun down a U.S. ICE agent, and then they're really on the radar. He and his partner in the incident, they're surrounded and their SUV. The guy points to his diplomatic plates, but one of the Zetas responds, I don't give a fuck, and they just light up the car.

The guy's partner somehow survives with two gunshots. But now the U.S. is pissed and focused, which is not a great place to be for a cartel. You want to avoid that at all costs. Yeah, you definitely do. We should put that on T-shirts. It's like the biggest don't I-G or crimes to keep away from the Americans. But I guess that wouldn't be quite so pithy. And people can buy our lovely t-shirts in any case.

Yeah, Underworldpod.com. Go to merch, and they are there for sale. ABC. And at this same time, all this is going on, right? The Zetas themselves are starting to fracture, not just from the Gulf, but amongst each other. And that's due to the second command under Z3, this guy Miguel Trevino Morales, otherwise known as Z40. He's what we could probably consider like the godfather of the CDN, and he's a lunatic and a criminal through and through. He's born into a family of 13 siblings, and they are a family of gangsters.

Five of his brothers, like him, they get into a life of crime when they're still youngsters. He spent some of his youth in Dallas where he gets fluent in English, which is going to help him with his, you know, sort of criminal promotions later on. His oldest brother slings weed across the border. He gets popped in the mid-90s for intent to distribute 100 kilos and gets sentenced to 22 years in 1995. And the lore goes that Miguel sort of enters a narco world right after that. He never actually serves in the military, which was rare for one of the top 40s Zetas, not even as a grunt, unlike, you know, the other guys who were special forces guys. but he is a thug and a heavyweight one at that. Him and his brothers, they're in a gang called Los Tejas

that runs drugs in Nueva Laredo, and eventually they're absorbed into the Gulf Cartel, and he's recruited into the cartel in the late 90s and starts moving up the ranks, you know, just climbing the corporate ladder as one does. At first, mostly because of his fluency in English, but also he's just really good at violence. One story has him as being recruited by the head of the Gulf Cartel himself,

Oziéle Cardenas, first just to wash his cars then as a messenger because of his fluency in English, and then as a Sicario, which kind of feels like either the story skips some steps or he skips some steps in the corporate ladder. I don't know. It's a tough transition, but whatever your thing, it could be anything.

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He's got close to 200 operatives working beneath him at this point, and it's right around the time the war with the Sinaloa kicks off. And he has a lot of success fighting them off there. He rises up the ranks to the state boss of Derrick Cruz. Then he's sent to Guatemala for what looks to be a few years to fight off some Zeta's rivals there. And I think, I don't know the exact situation there, but I do know, Sean, remember when I was talking to those cartel guys about going down El Durango and going and spending time with him?

He was, I mean, it's a known thing that the Zed has recruited like, um, Guatemalan special forces guys who were became mercenaries. And, uh, so I don't know if it had to do with, with a battle with them or just for, for control of some sort of land crossing. No, I mean, they have been hiring them. That's been a thing for a while. But, uh, there's that cabalas, like that, that famous Guatemalan special forces unit. Yeah, yeah. They're the ones that did some pretty bad stuff, right? In the civil war. Yeah, they're not, not, not nice guys at all. They've been recruited as mercenaries for a long time. So I'm not sure of him going down there was related to that or whether it was a territorial dispute over land crossing routes. And also, like, is this a case of him being really good at his job or is it just staying alive or is it one and the same when you're in the cartel worlds? I'd probably know. Soon enough, Z3, who was in charge at that point, is so impressed. He names him the national commander, which is kind of a big deal, especially considering he does not have, like, real military command experience, like a lot of the other leaders.

What he does have, though, is experience being just absolutely deranged. His go-to torture method is when his victims would be dumped into oil barrels, douse with gasoline or diesel fuel, and burned alive. And remember those two massacres I just mentioned, the 72 people and another one of 193? It's thought that him, Z40, was the guiding force behind that. He's also big on dismembering bodies, quote-unquote, stewing them, cutting out victims' hearts and allegedly eating them. I think we got onto some of this kind of stuff as well when I did an episode on the disappeared people of Tijuana. Like last year, I think it was. There's a fully paid job for so-called posoleros now.

It's like the stew makers, right? Who dissolve bodies in like lime and acid bars and stuff and hide them in sort of like quarries and shit. It's pretty, uh, yeah, it's pretty, pretty lovely stuff. Yeah, not, not fun. Um, and look, a lot of the times, like you research a report on these sorts of figures, you hear exactly. stuff about how deviant they are, how they're psychopaths. I mean, you see that in war too, right? But sometimes it's actually true.

Like, people do this stuff, and this is likely one of those cases. By 2012, there's a whole bunch of articles coming out saying Z40 is actually usurp Z3 and is now running the Zetas, saying for years he had been transferring assets and just getting way more loyalty than Z3 because Z3 was on the run. He was allegedly in Costa Rica and Germany just hiding out. Here's our 2013 piece from The Daily Beast. about how Z40 operates and set things up went. Quote, he was angry.

He looked for that in recruits as well. He wanted recruits who lacked opportunity, people who believed they have been screwed by society. He put a loaded gun to the hand of a recruit and then ordered the recruit to point at some random person in front of them. Trevino Morales would put his hand over the recruits' heart to measure how fast it beat as he yelled. Chingatello, fuck him over. If the recruit hesitated, he'd take his gun and either put a bullet to his head

or offer him a job as a lookout. It all depended on his mood that day. Which, I mean, you know, you're over here whining about the office doesn't have your favorite yogurt. And that's what his office is like. Though I guess, to be fair, like, the narcos probably make a lot more money than you do. And they get to do cool things. Yeah, they get to do cool things like drive around and up armored F-150s and maybe take the boss's pet Jaguar for a walk. But, like, you know, in all things in life, there are tradeoffs.

I keep seeing, I don't know if you're up, like, on Instagram, there are all these, like, um you know channels that just republished cartel videos like looking for recruits 70k a flight and they put like narco caritos behind them and they're just so i mean they're they're actually kind of funny like they're you know it's guys like on row on on motorboats in the jungle taking like batches of like liquid coke or whatever it is or precursors or just like you know helicopters and like crummy planes going down i don't know it's a good it's a good genre of uh of real but um another thing about c40 that he has his brothers and nephews and even a sister in the game with him, including, of course, his brother Omar,

otherwise known as Z-42. So he has, like, you know, a family base of higher-ups that are going to be more loyal to him than you would think than anyone else. So with Z-40 seeming like a man on the come-up and Z-3 on the run and losing traction, what happens? In-fighting, of course, that's what happens in the cartels. Honestly, it's a miracle like the inter-office politics with these savages was kept at bay for so long. But it actually kicks off in 2011 when a top-ranking Zeta is arrested and Trevina Morales,

slash C40 accuses members of betraying him. And a year later, he faces the same accusations. Narco banners are displayed in Zacatecas, in Monterey, and Ciudad Monte on June 1st, 2012, that claimed that Trevino is the new Judas. And a narco Corrito uploaded at the same time, warned, quote, pay attention cartels from Mexico and other countries. This is the story of a person who has betrayed his comrades by allying himself with federal agents to hand them over to him. His point is to become the leader of Los Zetas. They're accusing him of setting up the arrest and deaths of other commanders within the organization and of being disloyal to Z3.

There's also a lot of anger at Z40 for enriching himself more than he was supposed to. We talked about the transferring assets and everything. Things reach a fever pitch with that when a horse racing operation slash set up for money laundering in the U.S. gets busted. And the farm's actually in Oklahoma, of all places, which is pretty crazy. But shout out to Sean's ex-wife. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to her. I hope she's happy.

Shout out to all the exes out there. Why not? And everyone in Oklahoma, too. You know, you guys don't. Yeah, why not? You're great guys. A lot of flack in Oklahoma, but I'm sure there's decent things there. There's no reason for it at all.

Yeah. Yeah, the feds get up on it. It's bringing in millions. It had 300 stallions, one of which was named number one cartel, which like, come on, man. Like, really? Like, you're in the U.S. You've got to be a little careful.

So, indictment comes down. The U.S. has 70 million having pushed through it. And this really pisses off a bunch of Zetas who think Trevina Morales and his family are stealing a lot of cash from the cartel. Yeah, this actually reminds me of an incredibly funny story. I actually just learned, I think it was yesterday, about the gang in London who pulled off the massive Brinks Matt robbery at Heathrow Airport in 1983. So one of the chief gangsters who does this thing, his girlfriend swears blind to cops that she's got nothing to do with it. And then they find out that she's got two Rottweilers called Brinks and Matt. who are guarding her very nice, shiny new home, which is a flex.

I mean, it's like one of those stories where you hear, we talk about this too, where it's kind of like, maybe it's not that hard to do this, you just have to not be a dumbass. Like, could we, Sean, could we have second careers? Just don't. Wait, this is the second. Wait, how many careers? I don't know. Just don't like publicly name things based on the crimes you're doing.

You know, like how it's not rocket science, you know? It's not why. But that doesn't mean that we can't do it as well. So another faction breaks away led by a guy whose nickname is El Taliban, so you can kind of, you know, A, it's a great cartel nickname. And B, you kind of know what he's about, you know? I think his crew was called the Taliban's, which is solid, again, solid cartel naming. Yeah. And then we get more heads getting cut off, banners on bridges, bodies hanging, all that awful stuff.

At this point, lots of top Zetas leaders are being killed or arrested. rival factions are ratting each other out to the police, the rivals, and things in the organization are just completely falling apart. Plus, you have Z-40's Open Rebellion against Z-3, which encourages other commander types to do the same. They stop paying tribute, they start breaking off. That combined with pressure from the other cartels of the Mexican military,

it's not looking great for the future of the Zetas. Then on the 7th of October 2012, Z-3 dies in a shootout with the Mexican Marines. The Zetas start to fracture even more into various offshoots one splinter group was known as the Legionnaires and their number one goal was apparently to kill Z-40. Another one was called Zeta's blood. Morales, Z-40 himself.

He's arrested in the summer of 2013 by the Mexican Navy without a shot being fired with the help of U.S. intelligence, though, if you've seen the mugshots of him, it's pretty clear the Mexican Marines beat the hell out of him. I think the excuse they gave was that he fell into a bush. But you don't get marks like that from falling into a bush. And also, if anyone kind of deserves to get beat up in police custody, it might be Z40

you know like when you're like the guy known for acid vats you know you want to take a yellow page and smack you guy around a big punch yeah yeah or the or massacring literally hundreds of people

for being on buses like you know do a little slap here and there not the worst thing in the world when uh when Z40 is arrested his brother Omar Z 42 he takes over control

to breakway faction of Los Santos and this is basically like the real formation of the Northeast cartel. Omar, though, does not have the same sort of oomph as his bro. He doesn't have the charisma. Writes the BBC quoting a Mexican security official,

his extremely violent personality did not earn him the respect his brother had enjoyed within the organization, which forced them to face the opposition of some local operators who sought their independence, a situation that derived in further confrontations within the criminal group. Which, like, how gnarly do you have

to be the extremely violent one in both the Zetas and the Trevina Morales family. I mean, God damn. Like, what kind of person are you? Also, I don't get it. How can he be extremely violent and not get the respect of all of these like fellow psychopath cartel guys? Surely they go hand in hand? I mean, you joke, but like, yeah, that probably did, does usually go hand in hand with these guys, you know? 2014, 2015, that's when they give themselves the name, the cartel de Noreste, the Northeast Cartel, CDN, and we have the birth of a new notorious cartel on our hands. Omar, though, Z-42.

he's captured soon after and then at different Trevino Morales, his nephew, Juan Francisco Akiko Trevino Chavez, takes over along with help from an aunt and his dad. But apparently Z40 and Z 42, even though they're locked up, not dead, they're directing things from prison. This aunt, though, I should say, remember I said him and his five brothers were gangsters? The aunt was a sister of them. She's the oldest member of the 13 Trevino siblings, and she is a gangster as well. Her name is Anna Isabel, and she distinguishes herself. by recruiting other women to become important members of the cartel, such as her daughter. She also recruits young girls, teens, children to be like little spies and report on what's

happening all over their territory in the plazas. Some of them turn to hit women for her. Together, they do all sorts of fun stuff, like kidnapping extortion and robbing bars. They also run the protection rackets. They make sure no nightclubs or bars had patrons doing drugs that aren't bought from the Northeast cartel. I feel like there's an uplifting feminist Netflix series in this somewhere. could be great.

Or a 1990s Terrentino screenplay. But it's funny. I mean, that tactic I talked about in Porto Escondido where they had the most thorough security guards of any bar I've ever been to.

They'll check your inside jeans pocket. They'll check inside your wallet to make sure you're not bringing drugs into the club. And it's not because they don't want drugs in the club. It's because if you want drugs in the club, you have to buy from their house dealers.

They still don't catch you. You have to bring other, you can't bring other people's drugs into the club. You got to buy from their people. When Al-Kiko takes over, the Zetas fracture even further. Many other commanders accused the entire Chibina Morales family of being informants and lunatics, who don't focus on the sort of old-school Zeta ways of this, you know, focusing on drug trafficking.

So a faction forum is called Zetas of Yehas, Eskuela, or the old-school Zetas. The old-school Zetas, which is a pretty funny name, all things considered. They form their own cartel, align themselves with their old buddies turned mortal enemies, now turn new buddies, the golf cartel. I mean, these guys are like, they're like high school girls, you know, they're just always feuding and making up. It's, or like online personnel, like grifter, influencer personalities. It is, it's insane, dude, you know?

The nephew Kiko does not last long at the top. He's grabbed by the DEA in Houston, Texas in 2016, just over a year after establishing the new faction, which is, it's pretty wild. These guys feel comfortable just to hang out in the States. Like, it's one thing if you're some mid-level guy or whatever, but like the boss man, it's a real dummy move. Also, why go to Houston? Why don't go to Mobile or Biloxi or some of awesome hillbitty city? The feds, the feds probably aren't going to be crawling over there. There's cheaper beer. You can kind of move freely. Maybe I'm just like totally, uh, I'm just

thinking about the trip I did down to those two cities and they're really cool places. So maybe I'm just thinking about that. People love Houston, man. It's, it's a cool city. I don't know. What happens in Houston? I don't know anything about candy paint, you know? Cadillacs, candy paint, syrup. Back then, syrup, I don't know about anymore. But, you know, they have a good time down there. All right. That's on the list.

Yeah, put it on there. In July 2018, he's convicted in later sentence to two consecutive life sentences in a U.S. federal prison, along with a $2 million fine. What do they do with those fines? I guess they constantly have fun sometimes, but I've always wondered that. His aunt, Anna, takes over briefly. She's arrested a year later in 2017 on kidnapping charges, and then yet another Trevina Morales.

This time, Juan Harardo. a.k.a. El Cuevo or the egg, a nephew of the original siblings takes over not the best cartel nickname. But also, like, if it's not clear now, the Cartel de Noreste is like an old school family cartel. And the family is the Trevino Morales, who, I don't know, man, they got nephews and cousins and everything pop,

and aunts popping up everywhere. One gets brought down, another one just takes over. So, Nueva Laredo, when the Northeast cartel officially they declare themselves, they declare that city as their base of operations. operations, their stronghold, which makes sense because it was where the Zetas were. And they really take it over. I mean, they're basically a quasi-government of sorts.

They expand outward into other areas also from northeast of Mexico, although the Gulf cartel, I think, has the territory closer to the actual Gulf. They establish a contact context in Colombia, parts of Central America, but they're really kind of a localized cartel. And the reason why is in Nueva Laredo, which is Tamio Lippas, it's the reason the CDN can exist and fight off bigger, more well-known cartels. It is the busiest crossing from the U.S. to Mexico, the most valuable piece of real estate along the border. And they've got near total control of it.

CDN control is so pervasive that in 2019, gasoline stations Nueva Laredo are forced to refuse service to police and military vehicles under threat. And that means the authorities, they have to ship and fuel from outside the city. That's how powerful CDN is or was there. Unlike, say, Halisco or Sinloa operations in other areas, they directly control the city, right? they're not just aligning with local gangs to operate, which is kind of what they used to do. Quote, the Northeast Cartel decides what's permitted and what isn't, said one government official. This includes a total ban on robberies, carjackings and assaults, as well as consumption and sales of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine.

Members settle disputes as small as local neighborhood disagreements and hand-down punishments. I just remember, too, I made a mistake in the last episode. I think I called, I said the boxing fight where they made that cartel deal with Sugar Ray Robinson, and it was Sugar Ray Leonard, or one of the others. You said Robinson, I think. Yeah. It was Leonard. I said Sergey Robinson, so that was a mistake, and a couple people called that out.

So I just want to correct the record right there for that. It just came to be, dude. I remember it. I love that people are correcting you on that. Yeah, it's important, dude. And we got to mean a mistake. We got to own up to it. Yeah, yeah.

So paramilitary quasi-government, they have that ban on their, I'm doing synthetic drugs in their territory. But they're heavily involved in moving fentanyl. And of course, you know, meth, coke, heroin, gas smoking, extortion, kidnapping, and human trafficking, of course, they're right there on the border. So that's a huge human trafficking area. And they, like, advertise their services on Facebook and all that, so they're making a ton of money off that. Said Graham Baker, who helped me with the notes on this, quote, the CDN embodies a model of dynastic family-centric control focused on absolute territorial dominance, achieved through hyperviolence and the systematic exploitation of all criminal rackets within its domain.

from international drug smuggling to local extortion. Kidnapping is a big one, ransoms all that. The CDN as the direct continuation of the Trevino lineage represents the evolution of the Zetas into a brutal, all-encompassing criminal government that preys on its own territory. And to establish this dominance, the CDN develops their own special forces type unit, you know, sort of like the Zetas were for the Gulf Cartel,

called the Tropa del Inferno, or the Hell Troop or the Troop from Hell, which emerges in 2019. They are, in all things, basically, paramilitary shock troops. They do not operate like a street gang. They've got tactical uniforms. They drive those armored vehicles, the narco tanks, I believe.

They're called Monstroats in Spanish. They're also not tanks. And these things are not just like high luxes with Deuxtone on the back, which, don't get me wrong. Those are awesome. I wrote in one of those. They are great. I wish I had one on the streets of New York. But the things they have, you guys have seen the photos, if not, look them up.

They're seriously like up armored Mad Max type of things, which is crazy. I mean, I'm surprised they don't have actual tanks at this point, although the upkeep on tanks, they're super expensive and super hard to manage. But they could figure it out. They're smart guys. They got submarines, you know. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount.

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Packed with 50 grams of fuel, it'll help you keep up when your day won't slow down. And because it's always creamy and never chalky, every sip tastes great. Even better, it's lactose-free and has zero out of charge. sugar. It's not every day you find a protein shake you actually want to finish. Catch rock and protein in the dairy cooler at a store near you. Rock and protein and Shamrock farms are registered trademarks of Shamrock Foods Company. These guys go after the Mexican military without thinking twice. In 2019, 14 of them are killed in a shootout with Mexican soldiers when they try to spring a commander from custody, which you probably should actually think twice about that one. I think like very few

Mexican soldiers, maybe one Mexican soldier got killed. So not a great ratio right there. But yeah, They're the type of force who was willing to have pitch battles, not just prey and spray, dry biser hits. They ambush federal police convoys and a lot of our thought to have been recruited from military and police ranks themselves, just like the original Zetas. They're also said to be fanatically loyal to the Trevino Morales family. So I know that, I mean, it's pretty clear from what you're just saying that the Mexican state is hardly nailing it when it comes down to, like, comes down to bringing down these groups. but surely they have the firepower to go into this one city and wipe out these kind of Timu Green Berets. Like, how is this terror group running the entire city? It's nuts.

So I think they actually are making progress on the front against the cartels right now, at least by like breaking things up and violently. Or how it's profits can be made when someone else just pops up. But, you know, that's a common thing. These groups are not, like, they're not out there with like, they're not doing. civil war type of battles like one-on-one. You know, they're blended in. They are in the fabric of the city.

It's kind of like the favelas in Brazil. You know, the Brazil military is no joke, and they do raids like this all the time, and they still control all those favelas. Like I said, they, you know, they're almost like an insurgency. They blend in. It's not easy to get them out. You'd have to really go to war, and it would be extremely violence. And, you know, I don't think the Mexican government's willing to do that at this moment.

So it's crazy, man. I mean, it's my assumption. They are like in the fabric of the city. So it's hard to do that sort of thing. And they're not exactly all walking around in uniforms all the time, right? That's on operations. And these guys, the Trouble Del Inferno, they really just like wreak chaos all over Nuevo Laredo. They turn the city into no-go zones at times, blackouts, disappearances, retaliatory killings that are like routine.

Intelligence officers have said that even military convoys are often. out with ambushes when they enter CDN territory, including use of high caliber weaponry, 50 cows, grenade launchers, ambush tactics, and coordinated assaults. They're also constantly at war with Halisco, Gulf Cartel factions and nearby border areas like Rhinosso, and with the Old Scositas. And the Gulf Cartel, you know, it's also broken up to a bunch of different factions, but they'll reunite sometimes to get into gun battles with the CDN and the border regions. Also in October 2021, the CDN has a day-long battle with the Gulf Cartel allied with the Old

squizetas, where both sides use the up-armored narco, you know, the quote-unquote tanks. The CDN actually loses. It's called a battle for Dr. Koss. 10 CDM members are killed along with five of their armored vehicles being destroyed, which, I wish, I don't know if there's video of that, but watching like those things go up against each other would be apocalyptic, but also fascinating, fascinating. CDN, though, is also really active across the border in the U.S. There's a fascinating USA day article from last year about a cartel murder in a small-town

Texas called Zapata on, like right on the river on the Rio. A 22-year-old is gunned down with an assault rifle in his bedroom at his parents' house. Sicarios from the Trobelle del Inferno are suspected. It's apparently a relatively common tactic. They come into the U.S. for the day, do their hit, and then flee back into Mexico as soon as possible. These guys literally just crossed the border, paid two men to drive them to this home, went inside, killed the guy, got driven back, boom, done. The Texas Rangers are called on the assault case, but even the best of times, it's quite

hard to solve these cross-border murders and then get all the permissions necessary to make the arrest. To do it, law enforcement officials need to start the costly drawn-out process of seeking what's known as a provisional warrant with intent to extradite. All the documents in the case need to be translating to Spanish.

Authorities have to have an accurate name, passport number, and address for their suspect. Even if a Mexican judge approves the warrant, they then have to wait for police officials there, often outgunned by the cartels, to form a task force and make the arrest. At any step of the process, the entire effort, can break down. During the 15 years, Gomez oversaw the task force from 2002 to 2017.

The group extradited just 12 suspects from Mexico. The agent in this case is actually able to work with some Mexican intel analysts, figure out the names of the Sikario's, and put them on a red list. One of them is dumb enough to cross the border again in a human trafficking operation. He gets caught and he actually gets sentenced for this. Okay, so we're up to 2022 just a few years ago. El Juevo has been at the top of CDN for six years, which with these guys is like doing 40 years on a normal job. But the good times never last, and he's grabbed up in that operation discussed in the cold open, shipped off right away, and then deported to the U.S. almost immediately because he's a U.S. citizen. And of course, we have the CDN and the hell troops going nuts,

attacking military, police, even the U.S. consulate in a show of force. Jesus. Black Hawk a Bachel. Nice. Very well done there. And get this later in 2020. in November, the commander of the Hell Troop is caught, and again, the CDN goes nuts and brings Nuevo Laredo to a standstill. Here's inside crime and what happened. Quote, clashes began early on November 28th, with schools, offices, and public transport suspended across the city. The criminal group allegedly set vehicles on fire and installed blockades along key thoroughfares.

But Tommy Olippis governor, Americo Villariel, say it again, Sean? Villariel. That's it. announced that the violence had not been directly linked to any deaths, although more army troops are still set to be deployed in Tommy Olypice. So some major blows for the CDN, but they're still hanging around. And Owen Grillo's substack, Crashout Media, which if you really want that nitty-gritty stuff, go subscribe to,

has a post on CDN, I think last year that talks about a video made with the usual cartel gunmen, you know, kidd out in balaclava's and tactical military uniforms, standing behind a woman on her knees blindfolded and tied up. They have the CNN logo on the, CDN logo on the, chest. It'd be funny if it was the CNN logo like I just mispronounced. But there's something else, quote, but more unusually, they also have the words operativa, Texas, or Texas operation claiming they are a division of the mob that works on the north side of the Rio Grande,

inside the United States. It continues. It traffics drugs through the Tulleradoes, the busiest crossing for trucks on the entire border, and out to the strategic interstate 35, where dope can flow northward to reach the eastern seaboard. It also traffics five. with Texas being the biggest source of cartel guns in the U.S. and while it keeps murders down on the U.S. side to avoid heat on its lucrative operations, and has carried out kidnappings on Texan soil and driven the victims into Mexico. In November 2024, El Cuevo hatched the trial pleads guilty in federal court to a 15-count indictment that included conspiracy to distribute cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine.

Oh, they're still getting people on weed. How about that? Employing minors in drug operations, firearms offenses, and money laundering. Around the same time, yet another Tribunal Morales who had taken over as arrested in Mexico in September that year in a secret op led by the Mexican Army and National Guard. Showing how much of a danger they still are and how willing they are to attack, even in the U.S., the U.S. authorities immediately issue a safety alert to Border Patrol agents in Laredo, warning them to brace for potential retaliatory across-border violence and attempts by CDN gunmen to flee into the U.S. There's been a whole lot of other leaders and lieutenants now being brought down in the last year or two, and Kunga guy nicknamed El Ricky,

which I did kind of as a nickname. It kind of sounds like the friend you make, you know, when you're on vacation in the tropics who lives in the town and sells everyone bad coke. Yeah, yeah, you want to tell us what happened? I mean, my youth, it was my youth, dude. I remember nothing from my 20s. So that was back in February.

Once again, shootouts, attacks throughout the city. So while CDN is taking hit after hit, they're still capable of holding the city hostage. Anyway, it's to the point where, like, I'm not even sure what the hell is going on or who's in charge, though I'm betting their last name is Trevino Morales. It does really seem like the Mexican authorities are going hard on them, as are the U.S. authorities. In February of this year, they're designated as a foreign terrorist entity by the U.S., which is the kind of thing that used to sound silly, but like, you know, at this point, the way they operate. Just a few months ago, Z40 and Z-42 are arraigned in the U.S., so can't really be running things anymore.

Part of the reason for all this going hard, like pushing it forward, is that they're deep in fentanyl. And they're working with Los Maitos, the break, or Los Mayo's, the breakaway Cinelloa faction led by El Mayo's kids. Los Mayo supply them with fentanyl, crystal meth, and coke, which CDN then pushes north across the border into the U.S. They've got routes carved out across the borderlands and they're moving products, however they can. You know, cars, humans, even semi-trucks. And one trick they love is hiding dope in buses run by Omnibus to Mexico. That's a passenger line supposedly shoving people between the U.S. and Mexico. ago, but CDN uses it like, you know, their own sort of pipeline.

And they're not, they're not just local anymore, right? They've got Cruz, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, even the upper Midwest. And it's not just a kind of new evaluator story, right? It's national. It's in the U.S. now. And like I said, they're big on human trafficking and extorting all the migrants crossing over. When you control this sort of major crossing point like they do, you can also charge a premium

to all the other human trafficking orgs that are taking people up from Central America. In May, the U.S. just imposed sanctions on two other members of the cartel, one who was in charge of procuring guns and ammo, one who was second in command before being arrested in February of 2025. So where does that leave us, right? The CDN is not the biggest cartel in Mexico, but it might be the most aggressive and just a brutal offshoot of the Zetas that's still kind of thriving through their violence and trafficking with ties to bigger players like Sinhaloa. U.S. cracking down harder than ever, slapping terrorism labels on their leaders and hunting down anyone tied to the network, but for now they're still moving dope,

they're still running guns, they're still fighting to control the gateway city of Nueva Laredo. So as of now, the CDN is not going anywhere. But weirdly, with the dissolution of Sinola, the Gulf, the Zetas, all sort of broken down, it does kind of seem like the days of the super cartels are just these sort of massive ones are over. And that generally means more death and destruction, right?

which is the uplifting note that we needed to leave this one on. Yeah, the kingpin theory, man. You know, it does. So, like, I really, I don't know. But it is interesting to see, you know, one positive note you can take from this. One lesson that I'm learning is that, you know, even with the bridges that you burn that you think are the most massive ones, like, let's say you're working together with someone and then you decide to murder each other and torture them, down the road 10 years later,

you still might, some of you might still form an alliance, you know? Your faction might break up, and then there'll be someone else you guys really want to torture and kill. And then you'll team up with your old enemies who you thought you burned a bridge with.

So I guess what I'm saying is there's hope for all of us in our relationships and our work life. I was going to say, what happened advice, man. If you take one message, if you take one message from, oh, no, those grudges are still,

I'm not team. I'm ready to, I'm ready with some acid vats. that's a little too far but you know what I'm saying anyway I'm kind of losing it here it's August Patreon.com

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