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War on Drugs
The Zeta Cartel is a powerful, notoriously brutal Mexican drug cartel based in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. It was originally founded by a group of Mexican special forces soldiers who had received elite training in the U.S. Rosalio Reta worked as a hitman for the Zetas for many years before Hari met him in a Texas prison.
Zeta Cartel Quotes in Chasing the Scream
The Chasing the Scream quotes below are all either spoken by Zeta Cartel or refer to Zeta Cartel. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10
Quotes
That is when Marisela heard rumors that started to make it possible to make sense of this whole story. Sergio, she was told, is a Zeta. That is why the police would not touch him. That is why he kept escaping. When Marisela got her final lead on where Sergio was, the police were finally honest with her. “If he’s with the Zetas, we’re not going to be able to do anything, because they run the state,” they told her. “If we do a bust, it’s because they allow us to do it. We don’t bust people just like that.” They were apologetic, but they explained that the Zetas give them money if they serve them and death if they don’t.
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Chapter 18
Quotes
With legalization, the fevered poetry of the drug war has turned into the flat prose of the drug peace. Drugs have been turned into a topic as banal as selling fish, or tires, or lightbulbs.
As Barbara speaks, all the killing—from Arnold Rothstein to Chino’s gang to the Zetas—is being replaced by contracts. All the guns are being replaced by subordinate clauses. All the grief is being replaced by regulators and taxes and bureaucrats with clipboards.
[…]
I am bored at last, and I realize a tear of relief is running down my cheek.
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Zeta Cartel Term Timeline in Chasing the Scream
The timeline below shows where the term Zeta Cartel appears in Chasing the Scream. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9: Bart Simpson and the Angel of Juárez
...to behead, shoot, and kill with his bare hands. He was training to join the Zeta Cartel , which was founded by elite Mexican soldiers who received highly specialized training in the...
(full context)
...grew up in Laredo, Texas, a poor city right on the border, across from the Zetas’ main base in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. He has told two conflicting stories about why he...
(full context)
...killer if it weren’t for the war on drugs. After their interview, Treviño becomes the Zetas’ leader and is then captured by the police. There’s a new turf war for control...
(full context)
Chapter 10: Marisela’s Long March
...in the Zeta Cartel, who run the Chihuahua state government. Just like Arnold Rothstein, the Zetas have “bought [themselves] a place above and beyond the laws.” Marisela went to the state...
(full context)
