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Summary Authorities still haven't found the remains of Heriberto Lazcano.
The death of the founder and leader of Mexicos brutal Zetas cartel in firefight with marines near the Texas border was perhaps the biggest coup of President Felipe Calderons war on drugs. But triumph turned to embarrassment when authorities lost the body.Authorities still havent found the remains of Heriberto Lazcano, which were snatched from a funeral home and whisked away by gunmen in a hijacked hearse hours after the Zetas strongman died in a hail of gunfire in the town of Progreso in Coahuila state.The corpse theft left authorities on Tuesday assuring Mexicans that they got the right man based on fingerprints and photos taken while they still had the body. The navy released two of the photos, showing the puffy, slack face of a corpse whose features, particularly his flaring nostrils, appeared to match the few known photos of Lazcano.The fallen capo was an army special forces deserter whose brutality and paramilitary tactics transformed a small group of drug cartel enforcers into one of the worlds most feared international criminal organizations. Analysts say his death could set off a power struggle inside the Zetas as its relatively autonomous local cells decide whether to align with its remaining boss, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, a man considered even more ruthless and brutal than Lazcano.The killing is also expected to intensify the Zetas war with the countrys other dominant criminal organization, the Sinaloa cartel controlled by Mexicos most-wanted man, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.At the center of the two cartels struggle is Nuevo Laredo, a violence-torn city across from Laredo, Texas. More freight crosses there than anywhere else along the U.S.-Mexican border, making it one of the most valuable smuggling routes in the world.There will be a shootout at the OK Corral over Nuevo Laredo, predicted George Grayson, an expert on the Zetas and co-author of The Executioners Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs and the Shadow State They Created.Calderon, who leaves office in two months with the six-year-long war on drug the signature of his presidency, stopped short of unreservedly declaring Lazcano dead, but said evidence clearly indicated the Zetas founder had been slain. He proudly proclaimed that 25 people on a 2009 list of Mexicos 37 most wanted drug lords have now been killed or arrested.The president also praised the marines, the security force responsible for most of the highest-profile take-downs of top level drug bosses in Mexico. Many of those operations were launched in cooperation with U.S. officials, who see the marines as more trustworthy and competent than other Mexican military and law enforcement agencies.In an emailed statement, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said only: We have seen reports of the possible death of Heriberto Lazcano. We are awaiting confirmation of those reports.But the bodys disappearance demonstrated the unchecked control that drug gangs maintain over large swaths of many Mexican states six years into a struggle that shows little sign of abating.Coahuila state Attorney General Homero Ramos said that around 1 p.m. Sunday outside a baseball stadium in Progreso, marines spotted a suspicious vehicle that had previously been seen with armed men inside.The marines ordered the vehicle to stop and the men inside opened fire, setting off a gunbattle. The driver was killed in the vehicle. The other man fled and was shot approximately 900 feet away, dropping an AR-15 assault rifle with an attached grenade launcher, Ramos said.
