This article originally appeared at InSight Crime. The growing number of private security firms in Guatemala speaks to the state’s inability to provide protection for its citizens, but this booming industry is vulnerable to criminal co-option and could generate security concerns of its own. Guatemala now has over 200 private security firms and 150,000 security…
Category: Mexico
Cartel Corner #90: Armed Vigilante Groups Wage Urban Warfare Against the Cartels in Mexico’s Second Largest City
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…
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…
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 #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,…
Cartel Corner #80: Infiltrating the Dope Game
Anti-drug agents are usually extremely cautious about spilling the beans on their secret world, which lies somewhere between espionage, police work and battlefield. But here’s a rare inside look, offered by a veteran of the drug war. Mike Vigil, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s former chief of international operations, served more than three decades in the agency,…
Cartel Corner#79: Oil Pipeline Theft By Drug Cartels On the Rise
Pipeline theft in Mexico rose 52% in 2015, according to an Associated Press report. The spike came after a43.7% annual increase in 2014, according to asustainability report by Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company. And while the northeast section of the country — the site of competition between the vicious Zetas and Gulf cartels — was…
Modern Crime: The Golden Age of Drug Trafficking
Diplomats and top officials from governments around the world gathered last week at United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss what to do about the global drug problem. Over the course of four days and multiple discussions, the assembled dignitaries vowed to take a more comprehensive approach to the issue than in years past…
Cartel Corner #66: Drug Cartels Are Taking over the Mexican Tortilla Biz
Samuel ran down the steep dirt track lined with blue and pink houses desperate to escape. The 20-year-old took long strides and ran from one side to the other in a zigzag. He begged for someone to open the door of a house so he could hide, but nobody did. That mid-morning, the poor and…
Border Security: The Legacy of Pancho Villa’s Raid on America
Ever since “Black Jack” Pershing rode into Mexico to hunt for Pancho Villa, the United States started a pattern of personalizing Latin American security threats. In the words of one U.S. cavalry officer, Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 was little more than “a cluster of adobe houses, a hotel, a few stores and streets knee…