Zetas Return to Coban?

Plaza Publica recently published an article on the return of the Zetas to Coban that was translated and posted at InSight Crime. 


Less than two months after the state of siege ended in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, the Zetas appear to be moving back in. 

Everyone warns that the Zetas have returned. Walking around after eight o'clock at night gives the sensation of visiting a city in a coma: a small group of people eat meat tortillas in the corner of a park. Afterwards, nothing. Silence.

"Before it was lively. There were places open...you kept an eye on people on motorcycles, but not now," says a hotel employee.

The Zetas came back. But no longer with their double traction vehicles or their guns with 30-round magazines or their Norteño ballads sung in tuneless voices and the pricey sound equipment in their cars set to maximum volume.

Now they move in sedans. They try, in their own way, to go unnoticed.  

The Zetas are moving back into Alta Verapaz so that they can control the drug routes from Honduras and the Caribbean. The shipments then cross Izabal and into Alta Verapaz before continuing west through Quiche and Huehutenango or north through the Peten before crossing into Mexico and moving on to their final destination in either the US or Canada.

No one thought that the state of siege was going to work miracles, but more than a few weeks would have been nice.