Mexican drug smugglers target Texas fishermen

As the national debate over immigration rages, armed drug smugglers from the Mexican side of a popular fishing lake in Zapata, Texas, have targeted Texan fishermen, demanding drugs and, if that fails, money. The Texas Department of Safety has warned Texas fishermen to stay on the U.S. side of Falcon Lake, the Washington Post's William Booth reports, igniting fears that drug violence could spill over the border and into the United States. The pirates, dressed in black and Philadelphia Eagles jerseys wielding automatic weapons, tell their victims they are police. But they all have the letter "Z" tattoed on their necks, the trademark of the drug cartel Los Zetas, which is feuding with other drug gangs. At least three armed robberies have been reported. "Within the last month, with all the feuding going on over there, the dope smuggling has dropped off and it is starving them. This water is Zeta central. They controlled the whole lake. They distributed everything. Now they're desperate and diversifying," Jose E. Gonzalez, a Zapata Border Patrol official, told the Post. In the past, fishermen frequently got licenses to fish on the Mexican side of the 3-by-25-mile lake, though local tackle store owner Norma Amaya told the Associated Press that no one is fishing over there anymore. The Border Patrol seized San Diego Chargers jerseys about $14 million worth of marijuana in the region last year. Border Patrol agents aren't allowed to pursue the pirates into the Mexican side of the lake. "But, man, they are so good at countersurveillance," Gonzalez, the border patrol officer, told the Post. "They watch us, they watch our boats, our cars, our homes. The smugglers, they know every move we make."