Small War in Mexico: 2016 onwards

[AdamG]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is taking aim at the finances of the powerful Jalisco cartel in what a top anti-money laundering official said was an opening salvo in the fight to stop criminal gangs from flourishing with impunity

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...-idUSKBN1O61L5

[AdamG]

The Sicario’s Tale, Part 1: Pablo Escobar’s Top Hitman Tells ‘How I Blew Up More Than 100 People’
On the 25th anniversary of the cartel chief’s death, his right-hand man reveals the Coke King’s secrets in an exclusive new series for The Daily Beast.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-si...han-100-people

[AdamG]

This does not bode well.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador used his first news conference of 2019 to start recruitment for his new National Guard, which will become the country's primary security force.

Lopez Obrador says the government hopes to recruit about 50,000 civilians to add to the guard's initial composition of military personnel and federal police.

https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-looks-...162553359.html

[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