Inmates in charge of Mexican prison

AP/Houston Chronicle:

Officially it was a Mexican prison, but inside it hid another reality: a center of operations where the Zetas drug cartel modified vehicles, manufactured uniforms, locked up kidnapped victims and cremated bodies using diesel fuel.

Some details of the case were previously known. But a report released Tuesday by two university professors who specialize in human rights sheds new light on how one of Mexico's bloodiest criminal organizations took complete control of the state prison in 2010 and 2011 in Piedras Negras, just across the border from Texas, without any resistance from Coahuila state officials.

The report is based on witness statements, official documents and public data and takes a closer look at the use of the Piedras Negras prison as "key to the business and terror framework" of the Zetas.

The investigation, which was conducted by Sergio Aguayo of the College of Mexico and Jacobo Dayan at Iberoamericana University, includes more than 1,500 pages and describes surreal life inside the prison's walls.

For some Zeta leaders, the prison served as a hideout and a place to host parties where cows would be slaughtered to feed attendees.

According to the report, the prison's Zeta boss, a former municipal policeman who was not identified in the report, regularly left the prison escorted by guards to have coffee, shoot at people "just for fun" and have sex with the wives of other prisoners. He had 34 close associates inside the prison and another 58 inmates making uniforms and modifying vehicles, the report said.

But at its most gruesome, the prison also served as a chilling "extermination" site.

According to witnesses, some victims arrived alive and were killed on site with a shot or hammer blow to the head. Others were dismembered and burned immediately below a guard tower, which was controlled by the Zetas through threats and punishments.
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There is much more.

The details of their killing are sickening.  I suspect it was a way to frighten their followers into staying on their side.   This is more evidence that Mexico is not winning its fight with the narco-terrorists and their criminal insurgency.  Piedras Negras I across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas.