Jalisco New Generation Cartel

December 15, 2021

Recent beachside attacks reveal a new cartel turf war in some of Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations

Mexican national guard on Cancun beach — A member of the new Tourist Security Battalion of the National Guard stands guard at a beach in Cancun, Mexico, December 2, 2021.
ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images

Deadly attacks this fall have heightened concern about organized crime in Mexican tourist hotspots.
Recent shootouts are signs of what experts and officials say is a growing turf war in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.

MEXICO – Three recent armed attacks on Mexico’s top tourist beaches reveal a new turf war involving Mexican gangs, Russians, and local politicians, according to security reports and sources consulted by Insider.

At the end of October, an attack inside a bar in the popular city of Tulum killed two foreign tourists, including US-based travel influencer Anjali Ryot.

During the first days of November, tourists visiting Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun, were locked down in their hotels after gunmen opened fire on a beach and pursued a target into a nearby resort. The shooting left two people dead.

On the morning of December 7, three men riding ski-jets opened fire on a group of people at Playa Langosta beach, in the tourist hotspot of Cancun, according to news reports. No one was injured or killed, but another attack in only a few weeks spiked anxiety among tourists.

Mexico national guard troops in Playa del Carmen — Mexican national guard members patrol in the center of Playa Del Carmen, November 6, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Tulum alone saw 65 homicides between January and September, an 80.5% increase compared to the same period last year, when just 36 homicides took place, according to statistics from Mexico’s national system of public security.

Mexican officials said the recent spike in violence is a consequence of a “turf war” among a dozen local gangs looking to control the street drug-dealing business.

Oscar Montes de Oca, the state prosecutor in Quintana Roo — where Cancún and Tulum are located — said “about 10 groups of drug dealers” are fighting each other, but the reality could be more complex.

Quintana Roo very recently had local elections in its 11 municipalities, including for mayor and most police chiefs. This could be a key factor in the uptick of armed attacks, according to Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia, a Mexican consulting agency specializing in criminal organizations and security analysis.

“Most gang leaders had agreements in place with the leaving administration, and with a new chief of police, new mayors, and city officials, they are fighting to be the ones breaking a permissive deal that allows them to operate their illegal businesses freely,” Guerrero told Insider.

Cartels, gangs, and the mafia

Mexico national guard troops in Tulum — Mexican National Guard troops patrol the Tulum Ruins, November 10, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Currently there are six gangs affiliated with major Mexican drug cartels operating in the region. The main criminal activities for these gangs are drug dealing, trafficking, extortion, human trafficking, and money laundering, according to a recent report by Lantia.

“These gangs are fighting mostly for the beach area, where they want to operate freely offering all sorts of drugs and businesses to tourists. Another hotspot for them is the main streets inside the cities, clubs, and casinos,” Guerrero said.

The gangs described in the report are “Los Pelones,” which broke away from the Gulf Cartel and is responsible for the most recent attacks in Tulum and Puerto Morelos.

The gangs “La Barredora” and “Los Compich” are fighting against Los Pelones for Cancun, Tulum, and Puerto Morelos specifically. La Barredora is especially invested in generating business ties with local authorities and officials; “La Gente de Aquiles,” a group belonging to “Los Árzate,” with strong ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and responsible for most of the street drug dealing.

“El Cártel de Cancún,” which operates as a branch of the Sinaloa Cartel, is mostly responsible for the area of Benito Juarez and Isla Mujeres.

Mexico national guard troops on Tulum beach — Mexican National Guard members patrol Playa Pescadores in Tulum, November 8, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

On top of these gangs, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel also has a strong presence through alliances with smaller local gangs that once worked under the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, according to the report.

“This could only explain a part of what is going in Quintana Roo recently,” Guerrero said. “Another big part is the presence of Romanian and Russian mafia operating mostly on money laundering and sex trafficking.”

In May, the Mexican government captured Romanian businessman Florian Tudor in Quintana Roo. Tudor is accused of being the leader of a Romanian mafia operating in several tourist hotspots in Mexico.

“Florian T. was captured by Mexico’s General Attorney Office complying with an extradition request by Romanian government for allegedly being involved in organized crime, extortion and homicide” the Attorney General’s Attorney Office said in a press release.

Originally from Craiova, Romania, Tudor moved to Quintana Roo with several close family members in 2014.

Adrian Enachescu, Tudor’s step-brother, opened a Delaware-based business with offices in New York and San Francisco, which were allegedly used to transfer money from illegal operations in Romania to Mexico, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Mexican national guard troops on Cancun beach — Members of the new Tourist Security Battalion of the National Guard patrol a beach in Cancun, Mexico, December 2, 2021.
ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images

The organization Tudor is accused of running, called the Riviera Maya gang, was unique among European criminal groups in that Mexico was its base of operations.

“Florian built a network of politicians, businessman, and criminals for more than 10 years that allowed him to operate massively in Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur,” Guerrero said.

According to Guerrero, Tudor was so high up he even met with current Mexico’s top police chief, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, by request of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Although he is in jail and faces several years behind bars, the operation he is accused of running is still alive for the most part in Quintana Roo.

“Its the same as with Mexican cartels. They captured the boss, but the organization is still operating under new leadership,” said Guerrero.

Last week, Mexico deployed 1,500 National Guard troops to Quintana Roo, basing them in Tulum, to patrol tourist beaches. As with previous deployments, the soldiers in full gear among the tourists enjoying the beaches has received international attention.

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November 18, 2021

What the arrest of El Mencho’s wife means for Mexico’s powerful Jalisco cartel

The arrest of the wife of CJNG boss El Mencho is being interpreted as a win against the cartel.
But El Mencho has endured as head of the CJNG even as many in his family have been arrested.

The arrest of the wife of CJNG boss El Mencho is being interpreted as a win against the cartel and a significant blow to the group’s money laundering ability. But is her capture truly that significant?

On November 15, troops arrested Rosalinda González Valencia, wife of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” one of Mexico’s most powerful drug traffickers and leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), according to a government press release.

Officials said in the release that her arrest — which occurred in Zapopan, Jalisco — was considered a “significant blow to the financial structure of organized crime in the state of Jalisco.”

González Valencia, alias “La Jefa” (The Boss), has a significant reputation in the Mexican organized crime landscape in her own right.

González Valencia is the niece of Armando Valencia Cornelio, alias “El Maradona,” founder of the now-extinct Milenio Cartel. González Valencia and her brothers were present from the very early days of the CJNG, as many Milenio members joined with the cartel, according to El País.

Her brothers also founded the criminal group known as the Cuinis, which was reportedly responsible for much of the cartel’s finances and money-laundering operations. They were considered to be a sister organization of the CJNG for several years until the arrest of numerous members of the González Valencia clan led to the Cuinis no longer functioning as a separate group.

González Valencia was previously arrested in Jalisco in May 2018 on money-laundering charges but was freed three months later due to a lack of evidence. She paid a fine of 1.5 million Mexican pesos ($72,000).

InSight Crime analysis

CJNG cartel leaders chart — A CJNG organizational chart constructed by the US Treasury Department.
US Treasury Department

The González Valencia family was instrumental to the growth of the CJNG, taking control of the financial aspect of the cartel. At the same time, El Mencho led the group in its territorial expansion and feuds with other groups such as the Zetas.

The Cuinis amassed a veritable empire of assets through which to launder millions in criminal profits for the CJNG, including shopping malls, hotels, real estate agencies, restaurants and a tequila company. Their activities were not just limited to Mexico, as the arrests of several González Valencia family members revealed alleged money laundering connections to Brazil and Uruguay.

The wedding of Oseguera Cervantes and González Valencia was another instrumental step in ensuring the early power of the CJNG and the Cuinis.

However, as the CJNG expanded to become a national force across much of Mexico, the Cuinis have not kept up. The arrest of two prominent leaders, Abigael González Valencia, seen as the second-in-command of the CJNG, in 2015 and José González Valencia, alias “El Chepa,” have left the group weakened.

With much of the Cuinis membership behind bars and the US government offering up to $10 million for the capture of El Mencho, it may be that the González Valencia was one of the last links between the two.

Oseguera Cervantes has endured as head of the CJNG while many in his family have been arrested, including his son, brother and brothers-in-law. But the arrests don’t appear to have had much impact on Oseguera Cervantes’ life.

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November 3, 2021

Violence is rising rapidly in Mexico’s tourist jewel on the Caribbean

Police security tape covers the exterior of a restaurant the day after a fatal shooting in Tulum, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. — Police security tape around a restaurant after a fatal shooting in Tulum, Mexico, October 22, 2021.
Christian Rojas/AP Photo

A number of foreigners have been killed in the Mexican Caribbean resort town of Tulum.
The deaths highlight a rapid rise in violence in one of Latin America’s most sought-after destinations.

A number of foreigners have been killed in Mexico’s Caribbean resort town of Tulum, bringing a spotlight on a rapid rise in violence in one of the most sought-after destinations in all of Latin America.

Between January and September 2021, the town registered 65 murders, an 80.5% increase over the same period last year when just 36 murders took place, according to statistics from Mexico’s national system of public security.

And the violence has only continued. On October 20, two foreign tourists, a travel blogger from India and a German citizen, were shot dead at a restaurant in Tulum, due to a shootout between gangs. Three other tourists were injured.

This year has also seen attacks claim the lives of nationals from Spain, Uruguay and Belize.

While these killings only account for a fraction of the total death toll among Mexican citizens, local businesses are highly concerned that the violence is driving away tourism. In October, the German government issued a travel advisory warning about visiting Tulum, although this was later retracted.

In 2020, a record number of American tourists visited the Riviera Maya, a long strip of resort towns which includes Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, allegedly to escape COVID-19 travel restrictions, according to the Washington Post.

InSight Crime analysis

Mexico police beach Tulum — A police officer patrols a beach close to Mexico’s Caribbean beach resort of Tulum, October 30, 2021.
Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

Tulum may have become a victim of its own success, with criminal groups being attracted to the drug trafficking and extortion possibilities offered by this tourist hotspot.

The local hotel association says it knows who to blame. According to David Ortiz Mena, president of the Tulum Hotels Association, large raves and dance parties have led to an increase in demand for drugs, which attracted organized crime.

Speaking to the newspaper El Heraldo, Ortiz Mena explained that while the world shut down during the pandemic, Tulum became known for continuing to hold raves and music festivals. This was accompanied by a rise in demand for drugs, he said.

Extortion attempts on hotels, restaurants and visitors have also increased. “Hotel owners are alarmed because their clients, tourists, are being threatened by the bad guys. And when they demand attention from authorities, they don’t get a response,” Juan Noriega Granados, another member of the Tulum Hotels Association, told the press.

The situation has grown so dire that security forces have had to be sent in. 450 federal troops were sent to Tulum in late October, following the murder of the two tourists.

While a number of criminal groups, including national-level threats such as the Zetas Vieja Escuela and local gangs such as the Bonfil, have long operated in Tulum, the arrival of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) has been blamed for an escalation in violence.

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October 22, 2021

US sanctions reveal how Mexico’s powerful Jalisco cartel is seizing control at a major Pacific port

Mexico Manzanillo Colima drug shipment seizure — A Mexican marine carries packs of cocaine after a drug bust aboard a ship in the port of Manzanillo in Colima state, November 5, 2007.
REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar

This month, the US sanctioned suspected Jalisco cartel members, accusing them of controlling drug operations at the port of Manzanillo.
Manzanillo is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.
Control of Manzanillo is vital to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the synthetic drug trade into the US and the group’s expansion across Mexico.

The United States has sanctioned four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel, alleging that they controlled drug operations at a Pacific port that is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.

Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, Jose Jesus Jarquín Jarquín, César Enrique Diaz de León Sauceda and Fernando Zagal Antón are alleged to be members of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generació – CJNG) operating out of the Manzanillo port and surrounding areas in the state of Colima, the US Treasury Department said in an October 6 news release.

Treasury officials say the men “coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo” and maintain contact with cocaine suppliers in Colombia.

The Jarquín Jarquín brothers, as well as Diaz de Leon Sauceda, are allegedly among the most senior members of the CJNG operating out of Manzanillo. They report directly Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, the son-in-law of CJNG boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” according to the Treasury Department.

The CJNG’s “criminal success is partly due to its influence over strategic locations such as Manzanillo,” said Andrea M. Gacki, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“This Pacific coast port serves as a significant gateway for Colombian cocaine and precursor chemicals imported from Asia, including those used to synthesize fentanyl,” she said in the news release.

It’s not just fentanyl products moving through Manzanillo. In early July, 50,000 kilograms of benzyl chloride, used in the production of methamphetamines, were seized at the port.

InSight Crime analysis

Mexico Colima Manzanillo — Navy members patrol the coast in Manzanillo, Mexico, May 2, 2020.
Leoanrdo Montecillo/Agencia Press South/Getty Images

Control of the port of Manzanillo is crucial to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the lucrative synthetic drug trade into the United States and the group’s expansion across Mexico.

A report, “Mexico’s Role in the Deadly Rise of Fentanyl,” published in February 2019 by InSight Crime and the Wilson Center found that the port of Manzanillo accounted for the lion’s share of seizures of fentanyl precursor chemicals entering the country.

The CJNG, though, wasn’t always the dominant player in what had once been a sleepy port. In 2016, violence surged around Colima in a three-way battle among the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel and a faction of the Zetas. The CJNG was ultimately able to consolidate its control of Manzanillo by forging alliances with local gangs.

The CJNG was also positioned to deal in fentanyl, given its background in methamphetamine trafficking.

The group’s control of the port has been crucial to its swift rise as one of Mexico’s main fentanyl traffickers into the United States, according to a January 2020 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence report.

Combating smuggling at the Manzanillo port has become a priority of Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who visited Manzanillo himself as a show of commitment. In January of this year, he gave the Mexican Navy, direct control of the country’s seaports.

The US and China have also worked together to crack down on the supply of fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds. But halting the smuggling of fentanyl and its precursors is not likely to happen any time soon.

The shutdown of the Chinese city of Wuhan – an epicenter of fentanyl manufacturing – amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to the sourcing of fentanyl and its precursors from other countries. Meanwhile, criminal groups like the CJNG ramped up their manufacturing capabilities.

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October 19, 2021

Mexico’s powerful Jalisco cartel is flexing its muscles at opposite ends of Latin America

Mexican soldiers patrol in Humvee in Guadalajara — Mexican soldiers on patrol in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state, November 22, 2019.
ULISES RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images

Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is widely seen as Mexico’s asendent cartel, rivaled only by the Sinaloa Cartel.
But the group’s ambitions are not limited to controling the drug trade in Mexico.
According to sources and documents, the CJNG is stretching its empire into Central and South America with alliances and threats.

Mexico City, MEXICO – Mexico’s ruthless Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) is stretching its criminal empire south into Central and South America by making alliances, threatening authorities, and appropriating drug routes, according to documents and sources who spoke to Insider.

Originally based in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, CJNG has spread operations to almost every state in Mexico and most recently to countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Chile.

Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación has been described by US officials as the “best armed” criminal organization in Mexico and “one of the most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world.”

US authorities have said the organization is attempting to operate in the US through local gangs, but CJNG is looking to own the drug routes and the supply chain throughout Latin America.

A recent report from Chile’s Attorney General’s Office describes how CJNG is trying to establish operations inside the country for “large-scale production of high-concentration marihuana.”

Chile marijuana drug bust — Chilean police arrange packs of confiscated marijuana in a display for the media in Vina del Mar city, November 26, 2009.
REUTERS/Eliseo Fernandez

Chilean Attorney General Jorge Abbott addressed the issue at a recent press conference, saying Chile had gone from being a transit country for drugs heading north “to be a country where very well known Mexican cartels are looking to settle.”

The cartel’s expanding operations are also troubling Guatemala, where its members recently threatened Guatemala’s National Police for “stealing” a load of drugs belonging to the leader of CJNG, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” for whom US authorities are offering $5 million.

In a video posted online in early September, supposed members of the CJNG threatened several Guatemalan police officers.

“No one messes with Señor Nemesio’s people. Those things have an owner, and the owner is Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación,” an unidentified man said in the video.

Guatemalan police later confirmed the identity of the officers mentioned in the video and detailed the seizure of a drug load that could have been what the video was referring to.

An operative with the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación detailed the areas of operation in Guatemala for Insider.

The man, who asked not to be identified to avoid retaliation, said CJNG is currently fighting in Central and South America against the Sinaloa Cartel, specifically “Los Chapitos” and “Los Mayos” factions, linked to “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons and to the alleged active leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

“We are mostly concentrated in Sinaloa’s plazas, like all the Pacific coast of Guatemala, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Santa Rosa, Jutiapa, but also Petén, Melchor De Mencos, Alta Verapaz, and Huehuetenango,” the operative said.

Honduras cocaine drug bust — Anti-narcotics and military police officers prepare to incinerate more than 200 kilos of cocaine seized in Honduras near the border with Nicaragua, August 5, 2016.
ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images

An active member of the Nicaraguan military also confirmed to Insider the presence of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación in Honduras and Nicaragua.

The military member, speaking anonymously because they did not have authorization to talk to the media, said they have found bases of operation and “training camps” mostly in the region near the Nicaraguan and Honduran border.

“The Fonseca Gulf is widely used by the CJNG to operate, but also Puerto Lempira in Honduras [and] Corinto, Puerto Sandino and the Caribbean side of Nicaragua,” the military member said.

The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is allied with several gangs involved in shipping cocaine to Europe, according to the operative.

“The Sinaloa Cartel used to have a strong hold of the ports in Nicaragua, but lately we have found many operations and arrested some of them [CJNG], which leads us to think they now have more control over drug trafficking than the Sinaloas,” the Nicaraguan military member said.

The Sinaloa Cartel and now Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación are posing new threats to all of the region, according to Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Colombia-based security and risk-analysis firm.

“These Mexican organizations used to be partners with other criminal organizations in South and Central America, but during the past few years they have been playing a more active role, to the point where they are now making decisions in many other countries,” Guzman said.

Mexican criminal organizations have had a growing presence in Colombia since the late 1990s, when major Colombian groups like the Medellín and Cali cartels fell from power.

Colombia cocaine production — A farmer sprinkles cement over mulched coca leaves to prepare them to make coca paste at a small makeshift lab in the mountains of Antioquia, Colombia, January 7, 2016.
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

In the DEA’s first formal investigation of the CJNG, done in 2007, the agency accused “El Mencho” of shipping cocaine from Colombia through Guatemala to the US. In August this year, Colombian authorities arrested Néstor Tarazona Enciso, an alleged member of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación accused of money laundering, indicating that the cartel has an active physical presence in Colombia.

Guzmán also detailed how the alliance between Mexican criminal organizations and the Clan del Golfo in Colombia, which is now in charge of the cocaine trade from Colombia to the US, could soon change.

“These two organizations, Cartel de Sinaloa and Cartel Jalisco [Nueva Generación] are trying to get closer to the chain of supply, specifically cocaine,” he said.

In 2019, Colombia’s anti-narcotics chief said Mexican criminal groups were shipping an unrefined form of the drug called coca base out of Colombia in and processing it in Mexico, reflecting those efforts to control more of the cocaine supply chain.

Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación’s exponential growth is a direct threat to all of Latin America and should be addressed “by all countries involved,” Guzmán said.

“I see a dangerous gap in the collaboration between countries where these criminal enterprises operate. There is no coordination, and that is what these groups are exploiting to their own benefit,” he said.

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June 2, 2021

Mexico’s powerful Jalisco cartel is hunting down and killing members of an elite police force in their homes

Mexico oil refinery sign Salamanca Guanajuato — A sign at Mexican national oil company Pemex’s refinery in Salamanca, in Guanajuato state, September 19, 2017.
REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is targeting and killing police officers at their homes in Mexico’s most violent state.
The cartel has declared war on the Guanajuato state police’s elite Tactical Group, which it says treats its members unfairly.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is targeting and killing police officers at their homes in Guanajuato, Mexico’s most violent state and the most dangerous for police.

According to a report by the Associated Press (AP), the cartel abducted several members of an elite police force in Guanajuato and tortured them to obtain names and addresses of other officers.

Now CJNG members are showing up at officers’ homes on their days off and murdering them in front of their families, the news agency said.

According to Poplab, a news cooperative in Guanajuato, at least seven officers have been murdered on their days off in 2021.

AP said the offensive against the state police officers – members of a force known as the Tactical Group – poses “the most direct challenge yet” to President López Obrador’s so-called “hugs, not bullets” policy, which is characterized by the desire to avoid conflict with cartels and instead focus on addressing the root causes of crime through government welfare and social programs.

However, the CJNG – generally considered Mexico’s most powerful and violent criminal organization – doesn’t share the desire to avoid conflict, having declared war on the Tactical Group, which it says has treated its members unfairly.

Mexico Guanajuato police — Police stand guard behind sandbags at the entrance to Santa Rosa de Lima, birthplace of a local cartel that goes by the same name, in Guanajuato state, Mexico, February 12, 2020.
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

“If you want war, you’ll get a war. We have already shown that we know where you are. We are coming for all of you,” read a professionally printed CJNG banner that was hung on a building in Guanajuato this month.

“For each member of [the CJNG] that you arrest, we are going to kill two of your Tacticals, wherever they are, at their homes, in their patrol vehicles,” the banner said.

AP said that officials in Guanajuato – where the CJNG is engaged in a turf war with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and other local gangs supported by the Sinaloa Cartel – refused to comment on how many members of the Tactical Group have been killed.

State police did, however, publicly acknowledge the latest case in which an officer was kidnapped from his home last Thursday and killed. His body was dumped on a highway.

Without offering an exact figure, Guanajuato-based security analyst David Saucedo said there have been many cases of cartel violence against police.

“A lot of them [the elite police officers] have decided to desert. They took their families, abandoned their homes and they are fleeing and in hiding,” he told AP. “The CJNG is hunting the elite police force of Guanajuato. … This is an open war against the security forces of the state government.”

Cartel gunmen went to the home of a policewoman in January, where they kidnapped her and killed her husband. The female officer was subsequently tortured and shot dead.

Tactical Group officers are among the 262 police who have been killed in Guanajuato between 2018 and May 12. According to Poplab, more police have been killed in Guanajuato than in any other state since at least 2018.

The average since that year of about 75 killings of police per year in Guanajuato is higher than the annual average of officers killed in the entire United States, which has a population 50 times that of the Bajío region state.

Violence against police in Guanajuato, Mexico’s worst state for homicides in recent years, has become so bad that the state government published a special decree on May 17 in which it pledged to provide an unspecified amount of funding for mechanisms to protect police and prison officials.

“Unfortunately, organized crime groups have shown up at the homes of police officers, which poses a threat and a greater risk of loss of life, not just for them, but for members of their families,” said the decree issued by Gov. Diego Sinhue.

“They have been forced to quickly leave their homes and move so that organized crime groups cannot find them.”

AP said that state officials refused to describe the protection measures offered to police. They also declined to comment on whether officers would receive financial assistance to rent new homes or whether there were plans to build secure housing compounds for police and their families.

Federal security forces are deployed in Guanajuato but have failed to stem the violence or put any significant dent in criminal activity.

The federal government argues that its “hugs, not bullets” approach to security will result in a reduction in violence, but 2 1/2 years after it took office, homicide numbers remain extremely high, declining just 0.4% in 2020 from the record set in 2019 despite the coronavirus pandemic and the deployment of almost 100,000 National Guard troops.

Despite a campaign promise to withdraw the military from the nation’s streets, López Obrador has continued to use the armed forces for public security tasks but given them a clear directive to avoid direct confrontations with cartels wherever possible.

Former United States ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau said last month that the president sees combating cartels as a distraction from his political agenda and has adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward them.

“He sees the cartels … as a distraction from focusing on his agenda. So he has basically adopted a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them, which is troubling to our government, obviously. I think it’s a big problem for Mexico,” he said.

Source: AP (en), Infobae (sp)

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April 12, 2021

A new DEA map shows where cartels have influence in the US. Cartel operatives say ‘it’s bulls—‘

drugs mexico cartels — Mexican soldiers stand guard next to packages of marijuana at a military base in Tijuana, June 13, 2015.
Reuters

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest report on illicit drugs and drug trafficking details what the agency says is cartel influence in the US.
Security experts and cartel operatives in Mexico dispute the DEA’s depiction, however, arguing the links are more tenuous than the DEA describes them.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Ciudad Juarez, MEXICO – The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently released its an n ual National Drug Threat Assessment, in which it maps out the states where Mexican drug cartels have gained “influence.”

Asked about that depiction of cartel presence in the US, security experts and cartel sources told Insider “it’s bullshit.”

The DEA’s report says Mexican transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, “maintain great influence” in most US states, with the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion showing the “biggest signs of expansion.”

A map included in the report shows the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Cartel del Golfo, Organización de Beltran-Leyva, and Los Rojos as the most “influential” drug organizations with presence in Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Chicago, New York, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, among other states.

“Mexican TCOs continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the SWB [Southwest Border], and maintain the greatest drug trafficking influence in the United States,” the report says.

DEA map cartel influence in US — Major Mexican organized-crime groups’ areas of influence in the US, according to the DEA’s 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment.
2020 National Drug Threat Assessment

But operatives for the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion interviewed by Insider said their criminal organizations maintain “only clients or helpers” across the border and “not members of our organization.”

“You would never see anyone in the US saying they are part of the organization [Sinaloa Cartel], because that is bulls—. The members and leaders of the organization are in Mexico, not in the US. What we have there are clients or associates, people helping transport, or gang members working with us,” a Sinaloa Cartel operative told Insider.

The operative explained that most of the gangs or “associates” in the US work as independents.

“We wholesale to them and what they do to that merchandise is their problem. We don’t give a f—. They can loose it, sell it, snort it, whatever, as long as they pay up,” he said.

One of the most prominent cases used to prove Mexican cartels’ presence in the US was that of Pedro and Margarito Flores, two brothers from Chicago accused of importing cocaine for the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Flores brothers admitted to smuggling at least 1,500 kgs of cocaine for the Sinaloa cartel into the US every month between 2005 and 2008. According to their guilty pleas, they also sent more than $930 million in “bulk cash” back to the cartel in Mexico.

US authorities allege the brothers were part of the Sinaloa Cartel, but a phone call of a negotiation with then-Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman that was made public during Guzman ‘s trial in 2018 revealed Flores brothers bargaining over the price of a 20 kg shipment of heroin.

“Do you think we can work something out where you can deduct five pesos from those for me?” said a man identified as Pedro Flores.

“How much are you going to pay for it?” said the other man on the call, allegedly Guzman.

‘It just doesn’t make sense’

Philadelphia cocaine drug bust — A fraction of the cocaine seized from a ship at a Philadelphia port on display at the US Custom House in Philadelphia, June 21, 2019.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico and former official with CISEN, Mexico’s top security intelligence organization, said the DEA warns of Mexican drug cartels being active in the US in order “to keep asking for money.”

“It’s DEA’s bulls—. They have been doing this for years, and it just doesn’t make sense. Cartels today are not structured [like] a hierarchy organization, but more like a decentralized network,” Hope told Insider.

“The logic behind the DEA [report] is to argue there is an invasion of external forces so they can justify more budget and support from the US,” he said.

Neither DEA headquarters nor its offices in Texas and Arizona responded to requests for comment on the map.

The report describes the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion as “one of the fastest growing cartels” and says the organization “smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors in northern Mexico along the SWB including Tijuana, Juarez and Nuevo Laredo.”

“The cartels dominate the drug trade influencing the United States market, with most cartels having a poly drug market approach that allows for maximum flexibility and resiliency of their operations,” the report states.

The report doesn’t describe how these organizations maintain their presence in the US.

“The DEA has a problem with semantics. What does influence actually mean? What does presence even mean? An associate is no other thing but a client,” Hope said.

US drug market mexican cartel control DEA map — The cartel areas of influence map from the 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment.
DEA NDTA 2016

An operative for Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion said the organization maintained a large group of members in Mexico who are “mostly on the armed side of the operations,” while most contacts in the US were clients.

“Most of what we can call members of the Jalisco organization are on the arms [side], like sicarios, and some producers that are on a payroll, but everyone else is either a client we are selling to or an association to have access to certain route” for distribution in the US, he said.

Some intelligence officials believe Mexican cartels do have a real presence on US soil but function differently there.

“The substantial difference is that drug criminal enterprises are not displaying force at the border with the US because it is not needed. We should take into account that keeping a low profile is good for their activities and business, just as any other corporation,” said a high-level foreign intelligence official in Mexico who asked for anonymity.

The official said cartel associates in the US have something like membership, even if they aren’t part of the cartel structure, and “are using the brand” to prove their drugs’ quality.

“We need to consider that they act just as another transnational company, with their level of organization, distribution, reach, and territory control. They do have a presence in the US in how their drug has a brand backing up certain quality,” the official said.

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