Vigilante Urban Warfare in Guadalajara, Mexico Jesús Morones, the owner of a candy shop in El Salto, a rugged industrial area on the southeastern fringe of the Guadalajara metropolitan area, says he’s been robbed at gunpoint eight times. “Last time they beat me and locked me and my family in here for 10 minutes while…
Category: Cartel and Gang Profiles
Cartel Corner #89: Homemade Narco Tanks (Yeah I said TANKS)
As drug-trafficking-related violence in Mexico raged, the cartels came up with a radical solution for improving their capabilities in face-offs with other criminal groups and Mexican security services. Narco tanks are homemade armored vehicles, also known in Spanish as “monstruo” for their hulking size. They reached peak popularity in 2011 as the Mexican military seized…
Texas Border News: Headless Body Leads to Arrest of TX Border Patrol Agent
The Texas Tribune is taking a year-long look at the issues of border security and immigration. This part of the project focuses on U.S. law enforcement corruption, which has undermined efforts to secure the border. SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Tex. — It looked like a crab trap floating in the calm waters of Laguna Madre, just…
Cartel Corner #88: Cartels Near Texas Border Armed with RPG’s
The Mexican Los Zetas cartel controls portions of the Texas-Mexico border and has proven to possess Russian rocket-propelled grenade launchers and the grenades (RPGs). This is significant in that the Mexican transnational group has shown a willingness to fire upon U.S. aircraft, such as they did on June 5, 2015 in the Laredo Sector along…
Cartel Corner #87: The Lime Grower Vs. The Cartel
How A Lime Grower Led An Uprising Against One of Mexico’s Bloodiest Cartels IT WAS WINTER in the pocket of Mexico known as Tierra Caliente, the Hot Land. The sky was cloudless and the sun’s rays were casting flickering reflections off the convoy coming into focus: two behemoth SUVs, one black, one silver, passengers invisible…
Cartel Corner #86: Attack on El Chapo’s Hometown Points To A Cartel Turf War
Heavily armed men reportedly descended on the hometown of “El Chapo,” ransacking his mother’s home, killing several residents and displacing 150 families, a clear indication that the sun is setting on an era marked by the Mexican crime boss’s dominance. A gang of 150 attackers appeared early on June 11 in the small mountain town…
Cartel Corner #85: El Chapo’s Prison Guard Found Dead And No One Is Fessing Up
A soldier assigned to guard the northern Mexican jail currently holding Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was found dead last week, with signs of torture, and it’s not clear who’s responsible for his killing. The body of Jorge Mauricio Melendez Herrera, 20, was discovered on Friday in an unpopulated area in western Ciudad Juarez. He…
Cartel Corner #84: Peru is Shooting Down Suspected Drug Planes (Again)
On April 20, 2001, Peruvian security forces, with CIA help, shot down a small floatplane over the Amazon near the Brazilian border. American missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter died in the attack. Having filed no flight plan, the aircraft’s pilot failed to respond over the radio. Authorities suspected the plane of transporting drugs,…
Cartel Corner #83: Acapulco Turned Into “Gurrero’s Iraq” By Drug Cartels
The idyllic Pacific coast town of Acapulco in Mexico’s Guerrero state once welcomed Hollywood stars and honeymooners, but the city has suffered a wave of bloody violence in recent years, as cartels and criminal groups battle for control. Since 2012, Acapulco, which has been called “Guerrero’s Iraq,” has been the most violent city in Mexico,…
Modern Crime: Security Firms are Big Source of Weapons for Rio Criminals
Over 30 percent of all weapons belonging to private security firms in Rio de Janeiro end up in the hands of criminals, authorities say, highlighting an important yet often overlooked source of firearms for criminal groups throughout Latin America. A Federal Police report accessed by Globo states that at least 17,662 firearms were diverted or…