{"id":17241,"date":"2016-07-08T05:30:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=17241"},"modified":"2016-07-08T05:30:49","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:30:49","slug":"cartel-corner-89-homemade-narco-tanks-yeah-i-said-tanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/08\/cartel-corner-89-homemade-narco-tanks-yeah-i-said-tanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cartel Corner #89: Homemade Narco Tanks (Yeah I said TANKS)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sl-layout-post\">\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"clear-both one-page\">\n<div class=\"KonaBody post-content\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-17243\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/07\/narco-tank-2.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"narco-tank-2\" width=\"620\" height=\"310\" \/><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Narco tanks are homemade armored vehicles, also known in Spanish as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.liveleak.com\/view?i=04a_1307331947&amp;comments=1&amp;use_old_player=1\">monstruo<\/a>&#8221; for their hulking size. They reached peak popularity in 2011 as the Mexican military seized a garage from the Zetas drug-trafficking organization that was being used to construct the vehicles. At that point, criminal gangs could operate military-like vehicles out in the open with apparent impunity.<\/p>\n<p>The Mexican military&#8217;s subsequent crackdown on the creation of monstrous forced the practice even further underground. Narco tanks are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/mexico-discovered-narco-tank-factory-2015-2\">still produced<\/a>, but today&#8217;s versions have their armored paneling on the inside so as to not draw unwanted attention from rival cartels and the military.<\/p>\n<p>In January, Mexican authorities surrounded the hideout of notorious drug lord Joaqu\u00edn &#8220;El Chapo&#8221; Guzm\u00e1n during the Black Swan operation, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/video-el-chapo-guzman-caught-hideout-2016-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">raid<\/a> that eventually led to Guzm\u00e1n&#8217;s<a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/el-chapo-caught-mexican-president-2016-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recapture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mexican marines <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gob.mx\/semar\/prensa\/la-armada-de-mexico-informa-sobre-agresion-a-elementos-de-infanteria-de-marina-en-los-mochis-sinaloa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confiscated<\/a> weapons and two narco tanks from Guzm\u00e1n&#8217;s hideout.<\/p>\n<p>Below is a breakdown of the various features that made narco tanks into seemingly impregnable, drug-running beasts.<\/p>\n<div class=\"slideshow-content slide-intro-bottom\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"slide-module first-slide clearfix\">\n<div class=\"slide-content\">\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"slide-image-large\" src=\"http:\/\/static1.businessinsider.com\/image\/556c93286da811b757ecba19-1200\/.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"source-only\"><span class=\"source\">Screen grab\/Amanda Macias\/Business Insider<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"slide-module clearfix\">\n<div class=\"slide-content\">\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"slide-image-large\" src=\"http:\/\/static4.businessinsider.com\/image\/551c50b26bb3f76956214464-1200\/.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"source-only\"><span class=\"source\">Screen grab\/Amanda Macias\/Business Insider<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"slide-module clearfix\">\n<div class=\"slide-content\">\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"slide-image-large\" src=\"http:\/\/static4.businessinsider.com\/image\/556cb59b6da8119d4fecba21-1200\/.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"source-only\"><span class=\"source\">Screen grab\/Amanda Macias\/<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"slide-module clearfix\">\n<div class=\"slide-content\">\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"slide-image-large\" src=\"http:\/\/static1.businessinsider.com\/image\/556c9095ecad04360e828fea-1200\/.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"source-only\"><span class=\"source\">Screen grab\/Amanda Macias\/Business Insider<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"slide-module clearfix\">\n<div class=\"slide-content\">\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"slide-image-large\" src=\"http:\/\/static2.businessinsider.com\/image\/551c47de6bb3f7712f21446c-1200\/.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"source-only\"><span class=\"source\">Screen grab\/Amanda Macias\/Business Insider<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"KonaFilter image-container slide-image-large\">Read the Original Article at<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/features-of-mexicos-narco-tanks-2016-7?nr_email_referer=1&amp;utm_content=BISelect&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20%28Tuesday%20Thursday%29%202016-07-07&amp;utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select\"> Business Insider<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8220;monstruo&#8221; for their hulking size. They reached peak popularity in 2011 as the Mexican military seized&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5150,2351,2717,13,74,3688,1928,2620,2352],"tags":[1760,2406,12756,2727,12757,2861,3225,2728,12758,3223,12759],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}