AUSTIN, Texas, April 15 (UPI) -- The trial in Texas of five men accused of laundering money for the Zetas drug cartel likely will provide a look into how the cartel operates, one observer said.
The main defendant in the trial, scheduled to begin Monday in Austin, is Jose Trevino Morales, brother of Zetas leader Miguel Trevino Morales, a fugitive in Mexico.
Jose Trevino and his four co-defendants are accused of laundering the Zetas' money in the U.S. horse-racing industry, but pretrial proceedings indicate a broader view of the drug-smuggling and extortion operations will be presented, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Defense lawyers said their clients are innocent.
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Jose Trevino owns a house in the Dallas area and a ranch in Oklahoma where he raises quarter horses.
Prosecutors have sought to seize his ranch, the ranch of another defendant near Bastrop and hundreds of horses, the Express-News said
Miguel Trevino, who rose to power in 2012 when Zetas leader and founding member Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano was killed in Mexico, rules with another brother, Omar, as his top deputy.
Court documents indicate Miguel Trevino's criminal domain stretches from Chicago to Venezuela. The cartel is based in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, his home town.
This week's trial likely will detail his operations as a drug lord for one of Mexico's two largest cartels as well as his sway over police officers and corrupt politicians, the Express-News said.
The government also will present allegations that, through his brother Jose and straw purchasers, Miguel Trevino bought and raced quarter horses across the Southwest and used the transactions to launder money.
"I think that you will hear the prosecution talk about the Zetas, the way they operate in Mexico, the way they operate here in the United States, and the tentacles that go into Central America," Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the newspaper. "I think that these trials serve to basically remove the cloak of secrecy of these drug-trafficking organizations. It's not only putting them behind bars, but it's basically removing the shroud of darkness that they love."
