THE BORDER REPORT

A year after the bloodiest battle in Mexico's drug wars, five gunmen of the brazo armado of the Gulf Cartel were arrested in the mining town of Cananea.

The Zeta's presence in Cananea comes as no real surprise, but it is interesting to watch the government of Sonora's open acknowledgement of the events. The State Preventive Police released the information in a press bulletin this morning.

According to police, the encounter between cops and Zetas occurred early yesterday morning when the five gunmen, riding in a Pontiac Grand-Am, jumped in front of a police vehicle and tried to disarm the state police officers inside.

Police don't say what happened next, skipping straight over to "they were then disarmed."

It's important, as one of my old friends (¡saludos carnál!) likes to point out, that being a Zeta these days is no big deal. The group started as a battalion of Special Forces soldiers who were trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning in the late 1990s. Then, Osiel Cardenás Guillén, the leader of the Gulf Cartel, hired them away. Since then, many have been arrested or killed off. Now, every yoohoo who fancies him un gran sicario mafioso chingón in the pay of the Gulf Cartel gets to call himself a Zeta. Like al-Qaeda, the brand name's grown diluted by mediocrity.

Still, Cananea has never quite been the same since the attacks last May that left 24 dead and an entire city devoid of law enforcement in a shootout on the banks of the Río Sonora.

So it's back to this guy in the above photo; Dos Mil, Francisco Hernández Garcia. The former Sinaloan hitman got his start with the Beltrán Leyvas in the early 200s (actually in the year 2000, hence his nom de guerre). He betrayed his boss, El Nueve, Raul Enríquez Parra, and went renegade three years ago now. Apparently, he's still raising hell.

All evidence pointed to him as the engineer of last year's attack and it was believed, or, rather, not believed but we were all told anyways, that the perpetrator of the attack had been driven out of the state by authorities.

Guess not.

This is going to be really interesting in the coming days. Cananea is home to Mexico's largest copper mining operation, now embroiled in a long strike. Just last week, Southern Copper Corp. offered a $60 million severance package to the striking workers, about $46,000 apiece, Dow Jones Commodites reports. The mine's been closed down for three weeks now. The bosses are hoping they'll be back online by next year.

Organized crime is so viral, and plays such an integral part in these dealings, that it's really going to be interesting to watch the negotiations over the coming days. Clearly, one negotiation already didn't work for someone, if you can dig it.

It'll also be interesting to see how the U.S.-based mining subsidiaries deal with the new tensions. Last year, at least one company pulled its American employees back from Cananea for fear of kidnappings or murder.

Stay tuned. Spring's nearly over and the summer's gonna be hot, hot, hot.

-- Michel Marizco