Los Zetas translated as The Zs in English, takes its name from its founder Arturo Guzmán Decena, whose radio code was Z1, which was a code name for the high-ranking officers. in the Federal Judicial Police. The Zetas can trace their origin back to 1999, when during an intense war, the new leader of the Gulf Cartel, a man named Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, recruited the help of retired army officer, mentioned above, Arturo Guzmán Decena with the in hopes of maintaining order in the turmoil of its current conflict. Once Decena established himself as a high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, using the promise of higher pay and more freedom, he was able to bring in more than thirty deserters from the Mexican army. Although these soldiers were not just ordinary soldiers, these thirty men were highly trained members of the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, essentially Mexican Special Forces soldiers. These men were elite commandos who had received prior training from Israeli and American special forces units and were well versed in urban combat, weapons training and tactical discipline. Decena's initial purpose in employing these men was primarily as bodyguards, although over time the roles of these men would greatly increase, as would the name Los Zetas. When the war Guillén inherited finally subsided, he chose to give to the Zetas. a wider range of responsibilities. With this greater responsibility, the Zetas' importance within the Gulf Cartel has also increased. Many of these new responsibilities given to the Zetas included kidnapping and extortion and acting as a sort of task force charged with securing drug routes. Thanks to their military experience, the Zetas were able to execute...... middle of paper ...... like this and the capture of Zeta leader Miguel Treviño Morales in 2013 are surely shining moments for the battle against the cartels. Despite all the captures and seizures, the Zetas still maintain control over eleven Mexican states and continue their daily actions of violence and drug trafficking. The Zetas have become a formidable foe, having grown from relatively modest origins to being sanctioned in 2012 by the state government as one of the most significant transnational criminal groups, alongside the Russian Brotherhood Circle, Japanese Yakuza and Italian Camorra. It may be impossible for the Mexican government to control the Zetas, and while the last fourteen years of the drug war have shown that this may very well be the case, the only option left is to simply coexist with Los Zetas. . in a new Pax Mafiosa.