Daniel Zamarano testified that as the second in command of the organization, Landin-Martinez played an active role in guiding drug shipments

Daniel Zamarano a Chilean restaurant manager who once smuggled marijuana and methamphetamine for the group told jurors about the organization of cartel operations in Reynosa.
“If you want to participate in illegal activity you need to talk to the cartel leader of that area,” he said. “Otherwise you will be kidnapped and killed.”
His testimony came in the fourth day of the government’s case against Carlos Landín-Martinez, a 62-year-old former Tamaulipas State police officer charged with multiple counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering.
But all like all of the government’s witnesses before him, Zamarano could not say that he ever witnessed Landin-Martinez committed a crime.
Zamarano explains the system through which smugglers hoping to work with the cartels obtain safe passage for drug loads reaching the Mexican border. Members of the cartel - often former state and federal police officers - pay rent to federal agents in Mexican city who guaranteed them a portion of the country’s northern border, he said.
The cartel could then move drugs through the region with impunity.
“The Military are the only ones that aren’t corrupted,” Zamarano said.
Once loads reached the Tamaulipas border contracted smugglers would then pay the cartels for the drugs and taxes for the cost of doing business, Zamarano said.
Those who refused to pay and struck out on their own faced persistent threats of violence.
Zamarano testified that as the second in command of the organization, Landin-Martinez played an active role in guiding drug shipments and enforcing cartel dominance.

Landín-Martinez, was apprehended in July at an H.E.B. supermarket in McAllen. Landín-Martinez and 13 co-defendants face multiple counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering specifically linked to criminal activity between January 2005 and January 2007.

Of those in custody, seven — including Muñiz — have pleaded guilty to charges and are cooperating with federal prosecutors. The latest, Ignacio Soria, filed a plea agreement with prosecutors on Tuesday.

Landín-Martinez and Martinez-Robledo have entered pleas of not guilty and are currently standing trial in proceedings expected to last through next week.