North Texas law enforcement authorities are bracing for what they fear could be an escalation of violence from the years-long battle among Mexican drug traffickers, reports the Dallas Morning News. While the beheadings, kidnappings, and daylight shootouts common in parts of Mexico haven’t become rampant north of the Rio Grande, the discovery of military-grade weaponry closer to the U.S. border and in Texas are signs that the relative calm here might not hold.
U.S. investigators have linked a grenade used in an attempted attack in South Texas with other weapons in Mexico thought to belong to the Zetas, the Gulf cartel’s enforcement arm. The Gulf cartel has long controlled cocaine trafficking into Dallas, which is a distribution hub to various points throughout the U.S. The only thing that has kept the Gulf cartel from using its brazen tactics in Texas is a fear of attracting too much attention, said James Capra, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Dallas.