Los Metros is a faction of a Mexican drug trafficking organization known as the

Gulf Cartel The Gulf Cartel ( , or ''Golfos'') is a criminal syndicate, Drug cartel, drug trafficking organization, and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, which is perhaps one of the oldest organized crime groups in Mexico. It is currently bas ...

. The group was formed in the late 1980s during the reign of

Osiel Cárdenas Guillén Osiel Cárdenas Guillén (born 18 May 1967) is a former Mexican drug lord and the former top leader of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. Originally a mechanic in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, he entered the cartel by killing Juan García Abrego's fri ...

, the former leader of the cartel, to provide security to the organization's leaders as the cartel's armed wing. The leader of Los Metros, Mario Ramirez Treviño, alias X-20, was arrested on 17 August 2013.

Fight with Los Rojos

In the late 1990s,

, the former leader of the Gulf cartel, had other similar groups besides

Los Zetas Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate and designated terrorist organization, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent " shock and awe" tactics suc ...

established in several cities in Tamaulipas. Each of these groups were identified by their radio codes: the Rojos were based in

Reynosa Reynosa () is a border city in the northern part of the state of Tamaulipas, in Mexico which also holds the municipal seat of Reynosa Municipality. The city is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande in the international Reynosa–McAlle ...

; the Metros were headquartered in Matamoros; and the Lobos were established in Laredo. The infighting between the Metros and the Rojos of the Gulf cartel began in 2010, when Juan Mejía González, nicknamed ''El R-1'', was overlooked as the candidate of the regional boss of Reynosa and was sent to the "Frontera Chica," an area that encompasses Miguel Alemán, Camargo and Ciudad Mier – directly across the U.S.–Mexico border from

Starr County, Texas Starr County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 65,920. Its county seat is Rio Grande City. The county was created in 1848. It is named for James Harper Starr, who served as secretary of the tre ...

. The area that Mejía González wanted was given to Samuel Flores Borrego, suggesting that the Metros were above the Rojos. Unconfirmed information released by '' The Monitor'' indicated that two leaders of the Rojos, Mejía González and Rafael Cárdenas Vela, teamed up to kill Flores Borrego. Cárdenas Vela had held a grudge on Flores Borrego and the Metros because he believed that they had led the Mexican military to track down and kill his uncle Antonio Cárdenas Guillén (''Tony Tormenta'') on 5 November 2010. Other sources indicate that the infighting could have been caused by the suspicions that the Rojos were "too soft" on the Gulf cartel's bitter enemy,

. When the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas split in early 2010, some members of the Rojos stayed with the Gulf cartel, while others decided to leave and join the forces of Los Zetas. InSight Crime explains that the fundamental disagreement between the Rojos and the Metros was over leadership. Those who were more loyal to the Cárdenas family stayed with the Rojos, while those loyal to Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez, like Flores Borrego, defended the Metros. Originally, the Gulf cartel was running smoothly, but the infighting between the two factions in the Gulf cartel triggered when Flores Borrego was killed on 2 September 2011. When the Rojos turned on the Metros, the largest faction in the Gulf cartel, firefights broke throughout Tamaulipas and drug loads were stolen among each other, but the Metros managed to retain control of the major cities that stretched from Matamoros to Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metros, Los Organizations established in the 1990s 1990s establishments in Mexico Gangs in Mexico Gulf Cartel Matamoros, Tamaulipas Mexican drug war