Small War in Mexico: 2016 onwards

[AdamG]

Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican authorities said Thursday they had found 21 bodies on the US-Mexican border after a drug-gang shootout in a town near where President Donald Trump was due to visit later in the day.

The bodies -- some of them badly burned -- were found Wednesday in the border town of Miguel Aleman, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) from McAllen, Texas, the city Trump was due to visit as he continues his push to build his long-sought border wall.

"We have reports there was a shootout yesterday (Wednesday) between two criminal groups that ended with 21 people dead," the security spokesman for the state of Tamaulipas, Luis Alberto Rodriguez, told Mexican TV news channel Milenio.

"Some of them were burned. Seven vehicles were also located... It was a confrontation between two rival groups that are involved in a turf war over drug-trafficking routes." The Mexican army found the bodies in a remote area following a tip-off, he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/21-bodies...182250452.html

[AdamG]

As Captain Renault would say, I'm shocked....

BROOKLYN — A former associate of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán testified Tuesday that the drug kingpin paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a claim met with audible gasps inside the federal courtroom in Brooklyn.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/...-million-bribe

[AdamG]

One third in a year. Think about that factor.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Murders in Mexico rose by 33 percent in 2018, breaking the record for a second year running, official data showed, underlining the task facing the new president who has pledged to reduce violence in the cartel-ravaged country. Investigators opened to 33,341 murder probes compared with the previous year’s record of 25,036, according to information from the Interior Ministry published on Sunday.

Mexico has struggled with years of violence as the government has battled brutal drug cartels, often by taking out their leaders. That has resulted in fragmentation of gangs and increasingly vicious internecine fighting.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...-idUSKCN1PF27J

[AdamG]

A video out of Mexico reportedly shows Narco Sicarios (cartel hitmen) setting up and executing a deadly linear ambush against Mexican State Police.

https://www.funker530.com/sicarios-l...XCJRm1XfZirwdY

[AdamG]

Just across the border from the U.S., drug gangs slaughtered 23 people — hanging nine from a bridge and decapitating 14 more, whose heads were found stashed in coolers near the town hall. The four men and five women discovered dangling from the Colosio Bridge in Nuevo Laredo were handcuffed, blindfolded and bore signs of torture.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...icle-1.1072899

[AdamG]

Not even bazookas and AK-47 assault rifles will be capable of penetrating the armored vehicle that the mayor of Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, intends to lease. Armida Castro Guzmán called on suppliers to bid for a 30-month contract to supply a Class III armored Yukon SUV made by United States auto maker General Motors. The Castro-led administration is seeking to lease that vehicle and 171 others, according to public tender documents posted online.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/may...er-protection/

[AdamG]

The School of Terror: Inside a Jalisco Cartel Training Camp in Mexico
ANALYSIS Written by Aldo Meza* - JUNE 13, 2019
https://www.insightcrime.org/news/an...alisco-cartel/

On the first day of training to become a hitman for the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, Francisco learned that the only way to escape from the camp was to leave “in a body bag.” In three months he’d learn much more: how to handle short and long weapons, ambush enemies, respect the rules, not be a gossiper and how to kill.

“You see how they kill people, taste human flesh, you live in terror,” he says.

Francisco — the name he has given to protect his identity — told Telemundo that he spent three months in a Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) training camp. His testimony, the only one to date, could not be corroborated by other witnesses, but his story coincides with the tactics described by former Mexican and US security agents. He says he had to endure physical and psychological resistance tests, as well as loyalty tests.