vaqueros, are not unlike thoroughbreds. They compete in quarter mile races. Fans bet on outcomes and purses can nip into the millions.
However, corrupting the enterprise were top-tier crooks in Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel.“Those horses led to uncovering extortion, racketeering and kidnapping,” Dan Johnstone, co-director of the new Apple+ documentary “Cowboy Cartel,” which drops today, told The Post. “[The uncovering contributed] to the Zeta’s downfall.”In January 2010, the FBI’s Laredo, Texas, office received a tip the Zetas – then the most violent drug operation in Mexico – were using quarter horses to launder money on their turf in the US.Succeeding through what an official described “total barbarity,” such as leaving 49 headless torsos on a Mexican highway as a warning for anyone who considered crossing them – the Zetas brought gang violence to gut-churning levels.A local police chief in Mexico announced that the cartel did not scare him.
In 24 hours, he was dead.Back in Texas, a North Dallas bricklayer by the name of José Treviño Morales purchased a horse called Tempting Dash, paying a record setting $875,000 at auction, which raised eyebrows.José was the US-based law-abiding brother of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, aka Z-40, known for being the 40th member of the Zetas and its leader.It was one of many horse purchases bankrolled through a flotilla of shell companies loaded with drug money.
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