La Tuta captured: Mexico's flamboyant primary teacher turned drug kingpin

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/la-tuta-mexico-flamboyant-teacher-drug-cartel

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Mexican police have captured a former primary school teacher who became the head of one of the country’s most bizarre and bloodthirsty drug-trafficking groups, putting an end to a flamboyant criminal career that stood out in a country where underworld bosses have traditionally sought to avoid the spotlight.

Servando Gómez Martínez, nicknamed “La Tuta” was captured by federal police in the early hours of Friday morning in the city of Morelia, capital of the Pacific coast state of Michoacán.

He was taken to Mexico City for questioning, before being marched in front of TV cameras to a helicopter to be flown to prison the same night.

A few minutes earlier, the national security commissioner, Monte Alejandro Rubido, told reporters that Gómez Martínez was arrested as he left a safehouse wearing a baseball cap and scarf, to hide his well-known face.

He said the authorities had spent months staking out a number of houses in Morelia they believed he used, but had homed in on the capo when they noticed a group of accomplices carrying cakes, soft drinks and food on 6 February, apparently preparing to celebrate his birthday.

The commissioner said eight bodyguards were also arrested in the operation, which he said was carried out without a shot being fired and included the seizure of a grenade launcher, three grenades, a machine pistol, four assault rifles, and seven handguns.

Related: Mexico captures drug lord Servando ‘La Tuta’ Gómez

As the head of the Knights Templar crime cartel, Gómez Martínez’s constant search for publicity marked him out from other kingpins who have traditionally hidden from the public eye while cultivating an aura of mystery.

“After months of investigation, Servando Gómez Martínez was detained today,” President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted. “This arrest strengthens the rule of law in the country as we continue to advance to a Mexico at peace.”

La Tuta’s capture marks the latest in a string of high-profile arrests under Peña Nieto’s government, which has been aggressive in targeting drug kingpins, including the country’s most powerful crime boss, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was detained in 2014.

But security analysts questioned whether the arrest would have any long-term significance: “The capture of La Tuta is an important political achievement, but it will have little impact on the security situation in Michoacán because he is no longer a major figure in criminal activity in the state. For the last few months he has been on the run and his organisation is much diminished,” said Guillermo Valdés, a former head of the Mexican intelligence agency.

At the height of cartel’s power, La Tuta released innumerable YouTube videos, and also talked to TV reporters and called radio phone-in shows to give rambling justifications for the cartel’s actions.

Invariably sporting a greying goatee and baseball cap, he continued to release videos charting his own slow demise as federal forces closed in.

In its main bastion of Michoacán, the Knights Templars dominated the trade in marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as other criminal activities including extortion, kidnapping and illegal mining.

The group imposed a reign of terror, dressing up its violence with cult-like rituals: new members were initiated wearing faux medieval costumes, including plastic helmets and tunics emblazoned with red crusader crosses. As cartel spokesman, La Tuta also claimed to be fighting for social justice.

La Tuta’s arrest, however, comes at a time when the cartel is much diminished following a year long federal offensive in its strongholds within the region of Michoacán known as the Tierra Caliente, or Hot Lands.

Related: Mexico drug war continues to rage in region where president fired first salvo

With all the other major cartel figures captured or killed in the offensive, La Tuta was said to be hiding out in mountain caves in the months before today’s arrest in the state capital.

The cartel’s dominance of the region was first challenged in 2013 by the rise of heavily armed vigilantes who claimed they had no choice but to take on the cartel themselves in the face of government inaction and corruption. The federal offensive was launched after the fight between the vigilantes and the Knights Templar threatened to develop into an all-out civil war.

The capture of La Tuta is a boost to the government’s claims to have pacified the state, though this is called into question by the emergence of new groups made up of former cartel members and vigilantes who continue to ensure that tension runs high in the area.

La Tuta grew up in the region, where he worked as a primary school teacher before switching to marijuana smuggling in around 2001. After initially working independently, he soon joined La Familia Michoacana, a new cartel which emerged in the region and soon broke the mold of Mexican drug cartels.

La Tuta un minuto después de su captura pic.twitter.com/fTUQMbss8X

La Familia’s emergence into the public was marked in 2005 when five severed heads were rolled on to a disco dance floor along with a message proclaiming the cartel’s aim to deliver “divine justice”.

The cartel was one of the first Mexican crime groups to systematically diversify from narcotics, eventually building up a significant trade in illicit iron ore exports to China.

Its routine use of barbaric violence helped fuel an intense turf war between criminal groups and state security forces which has killed an estimated 100,000 people over the last decade.

La Tuta’s profile as spokesman for La Familia began to take shape in 2009 when he called into a local radio station to give the cartel’s point of view.

His power only grew after La Familia splintered, giving rise to the Knights Templar in 2011.

In the numerous YouTube videos that followed, La Tuta regularly justified the existence of his cartel as a “necessary evil,” who used violence to protect the population from even bloodier rivals who had made deals with the authorities.

In one 2012 video he sat at a desk in front of portraits of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Pancho Villa, as well as a Mexican flag and insisted that his muchachos faced death if they were caught attacking the civilian population.

“Our only function is to help the people, preserve our state and preserve our country from people causing terror,” he said.

La Tuta also made numerous recordings of his negotiations with politicians, businessmen and journalists – some of which appeared on social media as his position weakened, in an apparent attempt by the cartel boss to warn that his arrest could lead to that of many others.

La Tuta continued to release regular videos even after last year’s federal offensive in the Tierra Caliente began. He even invited a Channel 4 film crew to his hide out.

“As we told you, we are a necessary evil,” Gómez is seen telling a group of townspeople. “Unfortunately or fortunately, we are here. If we weren’t, another group would come.”

But with the cartel apparently on its last legs as the offensive wore on, La Tuta’s tone changed. In his final audio released at the end of last year, the kingpin said he regretted all the violence he had overseen.

“I have said I am sorry and I regret having been in front of this group,” he said. “I know that the federal government and all the institutions are after me. Well, go ahead señores. You have to look for me and do your job.”