Mexican drug cartel may have plotted to blow up South Texas dam 12:00 AM CDT on Friday, June 4, 2010 The Houston Chronicle HOUSTON – An alleged plot by a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a dam along the Texas border – and unleash billions of gallons of water into a region with millions of civilians – sent American police, federal agents and disaster officials secretly scrambling last month to thwart such an attack, authorities have confirmed.
Whether the Zeta cartel, which is known to have stolen bulk quantities of gunpowder and dynamite, could have taken down the 5-mile-long Falcon Dam may never be known since the attack never came to pass.
It may have been derailed by a stepped-up presence by the Mexican military, which was acting in part on intelligence from the U.S. government.
The warning, which swung officials into action, was based on what the federal government contends were "serious and reliable sources" and prompted the Department of Homeland Security to sound the alarm to first responders along the South Texas-Mexico border. Special cameras were set up along the dam, which has six 50-foot-tall steel gates, and lawmen hid in brush.
The Zeta cartel was planning to destroy the dam not to terrorize civilians, but to get back at its rival and former ally, the Gulf cartel, which controls smuggling routes from the reservoir to the Gulf of Mexico, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, head of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition, as did others familiar with the alleged plot.
But in the process, massive amounts of agricultural land would stand to be flooded as well as significant parts of a region where about 4 million people live along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Houston Chronicle
