Tamaulipas: The narco counter-attack

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article

[ Subject Matter: Tamaulipas, CdG, Los Zetas, Carrillo Fuentes Organization, CJNG

Recommendation: Some prior knowledge of Cartels useful]

Gun battles, persecutions, blockades and executions, is what people live with in Reynosa, Altamira, Tampico and Madero with reprisals of criminal groups after the capture of their leaders. In Michoacan society is indignant, the official mounting death toll of protesters manifesting in Apatzingan, worry about the ingress of new criminal groups in the region. Chihuahua follows restructuring in the Carrillo Fuentes Organization after the detention of "El Chuyin".

Luis Carlos Sainz Martinez and Cortesia

Combat amongst the old narco trafficking cartels and lack of action against the new criminal groups on the part of the Authorities, with major bloodshed during the last week in different states of the country.

The blows delivered to the Juarez and Gulf Cartels, as well as abuses of power and the lawlessness that exists in the state of Michoacan, kept the inhabitants of Chihuahua and Sinaloa and Tamaulipas and the Purepecha region on tenterhooks, as well as the concern felt by the United States Government who emit constant travel alerts.

The violence in areas where the Government of the Republic have not previously controlled, started on Friday the 17th of April in the border area of Tamaulipas and Texas, the gun battles, dead bodies, and blockades increases with each passing day.





During the past week, the PGR confirmed information of the existence of nine drug cartels that operate in Mexico. Among the combatants are , Cartel del Golfo (CDG), Juarez Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, Arellano Felix Organization (AFO/CAF), Los Zetas, Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) and La Familia Michoacana (LFM). The newer are Los Caballeros Templarios (CT) and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).

Meanwhile, the PGR recognise that the CJNG is the most dangerous and do not only operate in Jalisco. But have now extended to Colima, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Guerrero, Morelos, Veracruz and the Federal District, statistics were analysed by the National Citizens Observatory.

Francisco Rivas, Director of this non-Government organisation, informs that the major number of crimes of high impact are concentrated in the states of Guerrero, Morelos, Tamaulipas and Baja California.

In the first two there is a presence of CJNG and CT. Violent homicides, extortion, and robberies with violence are bread and butter every day. Tamaulipas is the National leader in Kidnappings ( Otis: 693% above the national average).

For Mexico, the situation is no better. Already its not only the perception, and they justify with insistence, Governors, Mayors, Prosecutors and Federal Officials.

To the chronic violence that exits in the country, we can add the ineffectiveness and corruption. The Global Index of Immunity 2015, gave information a few weeks ago, that located our nation in second place, only lower than the Phillipines and above Colombia, Russian and Turkey, of a total of 59 member countries of the United Nations that were analysed.

Revenge in the Gulf

Freedoms and apprehensions, persecutions, frequent gun battles and blockades of roads with burning vehicles, returned the uneasiness for the inhabitants of Tamaulipas in Reynosa, Altamira, Tampico and Ciudad Madero since at least last friday.

The news of criminal acts in Tamaulipas began very early that day on April the 17th, when the drug trafficker Luis Reyes Enriquez "El Rex" or "El Z-12", gunman and one of the founders of Los Zetas was released from Prison. The offender was a prisoner since 2007 in the maximum security prison of CEFERSO No.2 Puente Grande in Jalisco State, where there was a purge of condemned of organised crime.

Later that day,  was reported the movement of Mexican Army Troops and Federal Agents who carried out an operation and had found their objective. They had captured Jose Tiburcio Hernandez Fuentes "El Gafe", one of the heads of the Cartel del Golfo. With the alleged narco trafficker were three other men. They had in their possession firearms, vehicles, $278,000.00 and almost 1,200,000 Pesos in effect.

This action caused the violent reaction from the criminal organisation that through about 70 combatants in 15 vehicles clashed with various Authorities and devoted themselves of blocking streets and avenues, sowing terror in the south west of Reynosa. The balance was three civilians dead, two injured and two arrested. The Secretariat for Tamaulipas raised the threat level to "Zone Red" in the City.

El Gafe

For their part, the Government of the Republic confirmed that "El Gafe" used 8 names - to make him difficult to investigate, is one of the most bloodthirsty criminals, and principal creator of the violence in Tamaulipas. On Tuesday the 21st, "El Gafe" was transferred to the CEFERESO No.1 Altiplano Supermax prison in Mexico State, together with his accomplices Javier Martin Anguiano Toledo and Juan Gilberto Zamarripa Vallejo. All were consigned before a Judge for the crimes of "operations with resources of illicit origin and organised crime.

Wednesday the 23rd of April, the violence didn't quieten for Tamaulipans, with reports of new gun battles and blockades, but in City arteries and Highways of Altamira, Tampico and Madero. The Authorities returned to alert the population through social networking and media communications. State Police were attacked by Sicarios. Five Sicarios and one Policeman died, and many other Security personnel were wounded.

The assaults allegedly occurred in retaliation for the arrest of the alleged regional leader of the Cartel del Golfo, Jose Sivestre Haro Mayo "El Chive",  who his cartel members tried to rescue, when they learned that he would be transferred firstly tot he airport and then to City of Mexico. The result of the blockades and crashes were four Policemen injured.

Mayors of the Municipalities affected by the narco violence fear that the bloody events will continue and have alerted the population to be attentive and take precautions. For its part, non Government Organizations like Mexico Evaluates, regret that the Federal Authorities have implemented specific actions to combat the insecurity and violence in Michoacan and Guerrero and has side-lined Tamaulipas.

Assembly in Michoacan

This last week was complicated in another entity, where all public security policy failed. The arrest of Servando Gomez Martinez "La Tuta" has not returned Michoacan to calm, where the citizen complaint and the research work of some media, give name to investigations that cost the blood and tears of Michoacanos, assembly and impunity.

The presumed dismantling of the criminal group Los Caballeros Templarios, despite the searches and assurance of real estate on Saturday the 18th of April, its not enough to bring peace back to the coastal and Tierra Caliente regions.

The Authorities assured three gas stations and seven ranches of the narco traffickers in the Towns of Lazaro Cardenas and Tubiscatio.

However the villagers insist that following on from the people of "La Tuta" that were freed, that fed the growth of the criminal organisation of Los Viagra, have suffered from the incursion of Sicarios from Guerreros Unidos fleeing from the Federal Police in Guerrero.

Members of the ex group of auto defensas that were headed by Luis Antonio Torres "El Americano" have manifestly blockaded thirty geographical points of Tierra Caliente. The protesters demand greater security in the region to fight invasive criminal groups and ask for their weapons to be returned that were confiscated after the shooting at Buena Vista, Tomatlan, which occurred last year. They threaten to carry on the blockades until their petition is attended to.

The climate of social dissatisfaction in Michoacan increased this past weekend after the magazine Proceso and the website of Carmen Aristegui showed an investigative journalism video that brings together images and testimony, that accuses the Federal Police of having shot and executed unarmed civilians during a sit-in at Apatzingan on January 6th of this year. ( Otis: see Lucio's post on the latest update see link).

The information seems overwhelmingly to impune the representatives of Authority that once pointed to the protesters themselves as those who fired on their fellows.

Meanwhile the ex Federal Commissioner of Security for the State of Michoacan and brand newly commissioner for national sport Alfredo Castillo Cervantes, the Secretary of the Interior, called the video "distorted and out of context", Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, it was not complicated to affirm that he already ordered an investigation of the facts to the PGR and the Federal Police Internal Affairs Unit. The National Human Rights Commission will do what it feels.

Like if their problems were not sufficient in that entity, even when detained, the narco trafficker Servando Gomez Martinez, his famous videos promise to return to the screen.

This time, in a television program that transmitted a new video that shows Rodrigo Vallejo Mora, son of ex Governor Fausto Vallejo, reunion with "La Tuta".


The images denote the familiarity with which Vallejo directs himself to the leader of Los Caballeros Templarios. The ex recluse Rodrigo Vallejo, was detained for eight months in the prison of Santiguito, in the State of Mexico, accused of covering up for the capo, as he gave him information from C4 of Michoacan, which could be used as a system to follow someone to the Roma Colonia of Federal District.

The inheritance in Juarez

The states of Chihuahua and Sinaloa have registered Governmental actions intended to weaken the criminal organisation of the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel of Juarez. Jesus Aguayo Salas "El Chuyin", alleged successor of Vincente Carrillo "El Viceroy", was arrested. And in Culiacan they captured Jamie Eduardo Quevedo Gastelum, nephew of Carrillo, leader of a band of kidnappers and murderers.

The apprehension of "El Chuyin" occurred on Friday the 17th of April, after a confrontation between Sicarios and elements of the Mexican Army in ranches of Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua. In the action, one of the bodyguards of the narco trafficker was detained and another was killed by gun fire. The Police recovered a rifle of .223 calibre, an armoured truck, a five kilo packet of Marijuana, $20,000 and 125,000 pesos in effect.

Jesus Salas Aguayo, 38 years of age, is accused in Mexico of the death of two Federal Agents, and in the United States a relation with a homicide of a protected witness. He is considered responsible for the operations of the cartel for the transit of drugs, homicides, kidnapping, petroleum theft, and arms trafficking. The capture of "El Chuyin" was possible thanks to the support of four helicopters and ground units in an operation that lasted various hours.

A ferocious gun battle between an armed group and members of the Marines in the syndicate of Costa Rica, in Culiacan, Sinaloa, finished on Monday 21st of April with the death of four alleged criminals and six detained. Among the captured figure Jamie Eduardo Quevedo Gastelum, nephew of Amado and Vincente Carrillo Fuentes. The young leader of a band of thugs dedicated to kidnapping and killing their victims and other members of their families.

The Marines arrived at a ranch on the San Carlos fraccionamiento to effect a raid derived from an anonymous tip. The criminals were fired on by the Marines and in response were the fatalities. Among the victims was a businessman that had been kidnapped.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana