Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. He took his head off just by shooting it.. An argument broke out: A man wanted to know what Reta, a stranger, was doing there. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. Detective Roberto Garcia of the Laredo Police Department told the New York Times, 'The cartels - they just seduce you. Discovery Company. The former editor of the Daily Dots Unclick section, Klees essays, satire, and fiction have appeared inLaphams Quarterly,Vanity Fair,3:AM,Salon,the Awl,the New York Observer,the Millions, and the Village Voice. He was freed in November 2013, and sent to a support center in San Antonio. Reta killed his first victim at 13 years old, when a drug lord handed him a gun and commanded him to shoot another man. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison for his murders. "They were just kids themselves, waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox, waiting around for the order to be given.". Regret: Reta expresses his anguish over his killing career that began at 13 years old, Baby-faced killers: Cardona was barely in his 20s and Reta was still a teenager when they were sent to jail for the rest of their lives, River to hell: The international bridge over the Rio Grande that links Laredo, Texas to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Crossing: The border post at Laredo, Texas is one of the most important drug routes in the U.S. for Mexican drug cartels. Alleged member of the gang Los Aztecas, Chavez Castillo has admitted to over 800 murders, sometimes beheading and dismembering them. Click through the slideshow to view infamous Mexican hitmen. He graduated to smuggling drugs and weapons across the Rio Grande. Some, like the cartel hitman Rosalio Reta and the sadistic sheriff Joe Arpaio, are partially responsible for its violence.Others, like the addiction doctor Gabor Mat and the former president of Switzerland, Ruth Dreifuss . Then Noe Flores was gunned down in a clear case of mistaken identity. Harry Anslinger employed Joe Arpaio in 1957 to be an agent in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and he rose through the bureau over decades. "There are sleeper cells in the U.S.," said Detective Garcia. While in prison, Zavala spoke to middle and high school students as the principal speaker in the Libre de Prisiones program, according to Proceso. Rebecca Salinas is a digital producer at the San Antonio Express-News. Meet Rosalio Reta, an inmate in Texas who killed over 30 people during his time as a hitmanstarting at age 13for Miguel Trevio, the just-captured boss of the brutal Zeta drug cartel. Before Trevios capture and arrest by Mexican marines a week ago, the Center for Investigative Reporting spoke with Reta about his horrific experience as a murderous cog in Los Zetas. The question remains: How did two American teenagers become killers-for-hire for a Mexican drug cartel? LAREDO, Texas (CNN) -- Rosalio Reta sits at a table inside a Laredo Police Department interrogation room. His friend Cardona is serving a sentence of 80 years. Did you encounter any technical issues? "At a time I liked studying, I was always a boy who dreamed, until I stopped dreaming," Jimenez told a group of students in 2013, according to a Proceso article. To make a point, sometimes Trevino sent messages along with decapitated corpses of rival cartel members, said Reta. Menu. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Is the Stanley Quencher tumbler worth its TikTok hype? Although he initially commented I like what I do in regards to his career as a hitman, Reta in recent weeks has affected a more remorseful tone: It gets to a point where I cant even stand myself, he says. The following record for Rosalio Reta was recently collected from the state department of corrections website of Texas, of those serving a term of correctional supervision. "There's no doubt about it.". By 19, he was locked in a Texas prison in solitary confinement, facing 70 years jail for murder. He was sentenced to more than 80 years in prison. His feelings about his bloody work have changed over the years, from chilling braggadocio as a 19-year-old in police interviews, to softly spoken, wet-eyed pleas for understanding in his latest interviews. Witnesses testified Wednesday that Reta and two other men working for the cartel were paid $15,000 to kill a Laredo man in January 2006. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." Anslinger said addicts were lepers who needed to be quarantined, and so Arpaio has built a leper colony for them in the desert. Rosalio Reta, convicted drug cartel assassin Over the years the ramshackle neighborhood has developed into a discarded border region where homes sit on dilapidated foundations and families live. But former member Rosalio Reta told Reveal that Morales' propensity for psychological torture made him an equally terrifying killer. Alleged hitman Rosalio "Bart" Reta, 17, has pleaded guilty to muirder. 2023 Cable News Network. Investigators say Reta and another American recruit were paid $500 a week on retainer to sit and wait for a call to kill. A teenager accused of being a hit man for a drug cartel pleaded guilty to murder Thursday, abruptly ending a trial that exposed the cartel's workings in the U.S. and Mexico. When you see those, they seem like the window into the cold, calculated soul that made Cardona a notoriously effective killer for the Zetas. They brought him to a ranch where, according to Reta, 'They were torturing people and getting information from them. Rosalio "Bart" Reta, 17, was immediately sentenced to 40 years in prison. SHARN STEINMANN/Houston Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Lori Garcia . The way the content is organized. Reta, now 20, is serving a 70-year sentence after pleading with the DEA for extradition to the U.S. so as to avoid being killed by a rival gang member in prison in Mexico, where he was arrested for a 2006 hit. One of the most feared and powerful drug kingpins in the world, Trevino took drug cartel brutality to never-before-seen levels. He and Reta became Zetas hitmen, training in various types of weapons before being unleashed on the streets of Laredo. Rosalio Reta, Self: Generation Z: Child Soldiers of the Zetas. 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Cardona estimates he killed between 20 and 30 people. Reta didn&#8217 Michael Stravato for The New York Times In Chasing the Scream, journalist Johann Hari spends three years trying to understand the war on drugs by interviewing hundreds of people who have fought on its front lines. Rosalio Reta is on Facebook. I loved doing it, killing that first person," Reta says on the videotape obtained by CNN. ', Solitary: Before he was even at the legal drinking age, Reta was locked up forever in solitary confinement, Marked man: Reta, like Cardona, received prison tattoos after his arrest, the only outward indication of what occurred in his past, Teenage dream: Cardona and Reta were living like regular teenagers before being drawn into a world of murder, drugs and cash. They were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit. Top dog: Miguel ngel Trevio was at the head of the most vicious, violent and depraved of Mexico's drug cartels until his arrest last month. Can Alperen Sengun become a passable defender for the Rockets? Ive come to regret everything Ive done, Reta said. Just hours before they were arrested, federal authorities taped a phone conversation between them in which Cardona brags about killing 14-year-old Inez Villareal and his cousin, a Cardona rival. . "These organizations, these cartels, they function like a Fortune 500 company," Webb County, Texas, prosecutor Uriel Druker said. LAREDO, Texas On a dusty, remote ranch across the Rio Grande from this Texas border town, an intimidating drug lord stood over 13-year-old Rosalio Reta and handed him a gun. -Graham S. The timeline below shows where the character Rosalio Reta appears in, Chapter 9: Bart Simpson and the Angel of Jurez, drug war. 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Cardona was arrested and pleaded guilty to killing seven men and to conspiracy to kidnap and kill in a foreign country. An El Paso man convicted of killing 17 people, who later became a motivational speaker, was killed by his cellmate in a Chihuahua prison, authorities announced Sunday. Reta was one of 10 children and Cardona was one of five boys whose father disappeared early in his life. They were raised in poverty and with the many problems inherent to poverty. Im really a good person, he said. Reta has bizarre markings around his eyes; Cardona has drawings of eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Struggling with distance learning? I couldnt take it anymore. In January 2009, Lopez confessed to disposing more than 300 corpses. In 2009 Cardona was arrested and pleaded guilty to killing seven men and to conspiracy to kidnap and kill in a foreign country. People getting tortured, killed, decapitated. I couldnt believe what I was seeing. Case Details Full title:Rosalio RETA, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee Court:Court of Appeals of Texas, Fourth District, San Antonio Date published: Jun 4, 2008 CitationsCopy Citation No. For him, there is no future. Teenagers go there to drink and dance, but cartel members lurk there, keeping an eye out for possible recruits. Rosalio Reta is a former Zeta Cartel hitman whom Hari visits at the Texas prison where he is currently serving a 70-year sentence for several murders. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. The men say cartel leaders provided them with a house and extravagant cars. The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz. In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors . Movies. Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs He is only in his 20s, but he's facing a lifetime of monotony in solitary confinement. The I Files, a YouTube channel devoted to investigative journalism that uploaded the Reta interview, has promised a full documentary about him and the Zetas in the coming months. Houston pitmaster goes viral after hilarious TV interview, Houston facing severe thunderstorms, possible tornadoes Thursday, 'Call me a Nazi': Former Houston pastor calls for state book ban, Report: Houston ranked No. Inmate Search Alabama Arizona Arkansas Federal Bureau of Prisons California Colorado Connecticut Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana "Under the circumstances, it was the best we could do," Pena said of the plea. Zavala was sentenced to life in prison after killing 16 people at a bar in Chihuahua in 2012. Instant PDF downloads. Mexican and United States law enforcement agencies accuse Trevino of killing hundreds of people while laundering hundreds of millions of dollars. 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