It is September 2021. The oppressive Texas sun is beginning to set as two men meet for the first time in the parking lot of a Whataburger restaurant on Calton Road in Laredo. The meeting, arranged beforehand via Facebook messages, had a single objective: to plan a murder that would bear the signature of the feared Northeast Cartel (*Cártel del Noreste*).
No one nearby could have suspected the men’s intentions; yet, their low profile belied their criminal backgrounds. One of the individuals involved was identified as Noé González Martínez—alias “Tocayo”—who sought another person’s help to commit the crime, unaware that this individual had already become an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Anti-narcotics agents monitoring the meeting learned that afternoon that Tocayo wanted his contact to procure the necessary firearms and coordinate at least three other Northeast Cartel hitmen to kidnap and murder a Laredo-based trafficker known by the alias “Tico.” This was no minor assignment; it was an order from a man whose lineage has been behind at least a decade of violence in eastern Mexico. His name? Juan Cisneros Treviño, alias “El Juanito.”
The proliferation of criminal cells resulting from the fragmentation of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas in northeastern Mexico has sparked bloody turf wars over control of key territories and routes for their lucrative drug, arms, and migrant trafficking operations. While various splinter groups entrenched themselves in different municipalities, the Treviño family adopted Nuevo Laredo as their primary base of operations.
Following the arrests of Miguel Ángel and Omar Treviño Morales, the criminal organization came under the command of one of their nephews: Juan Francisco Treviño Chávez. To distinguish the group from other splinter factions of Los Zetas, Treviño Chávez—also known as “Kiko”—renamed his uncles’ criminal legacy the *Cártel del Noreste* (Northeast Cartel).
“The CDN is a powerful drug trafficking organization operating out of Mexico that smuggles thousands of kilograms of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and other narcotics into the United States each year. The CDN is one of the largest drug cartels currently operating in Mexico, and its influence extends from Central America through Mexico to cities across the United States,” the Department of Justice states regarding the criminal organization.
Although “El Kiko” was identified as the leader of the criminal organization, investigations by U.S. law enforcement agencies indicated that “El Z40” and “El Z42” continued to direct the Northeast Cartel’s operations from the Mexican prisons where they were incarcerated for approximately a decade. Juan Francisco Treviño Chávez was arrested in Baytown, Texas, in September 2016.
