Marines have taken down 670 criminals

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article with additional video from youtube

Subject Matter: Mexican Marina
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

During 407 confrontations against criminal groups they have detained 102 and wounded 43

Reporter: Ruben Mosso
Without the support of other agencies, the Secretary of the Marines have registered 407 confrontations direct with organized criminals during which they have killed 670 members of narco trafficking cartels.

From the last six years until today, the group of Special Forces of the Marina has had the task of locating the generators of violence, a mission that has allowed them to capture and neutralize the most important characters of different criminal organizations that spread across the country.

The Naval Institution also coordinates operations carried out in the north of the Republic jointly with the Army, the Federal Police, the Attorney General of the republic and offer support to state prosecutors.

Documents from the Ministry of the Navy reveal that from 2006 to the present, when the war against drug trafficking was declared, 670 criminals died in the 407 direct confrontations, with 43 injured and 102 detained.




During 2010, 2011 and 2017, the greatest number of civilians related to organized crime died in confrontations with the Navy, in the first of the those years there were 109,  124 in 2011, and 108 last year.

Tamaulipas is the State where the most confrontations have taken place with the Navy, in the last 11 years there have been 53 confrontations against cells of the Cartel del Golfo and Los Zetas. In 2010, for example, in the Tamaulipas town of Matamoros, the Navy killed the leader of the Cartel del Golfo, Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, Tony Tormenta, brother of capo Osiel Cardenas, El Mataamigos.

In that same State, on September 12th of 2012, in Tampico, the Navy captured Jorge Eduardo Costilla, El Coss, leader of the Cartel del Golfo, while on October the 7th of the same year, the Los Zetas leader, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, El Lazca, was killed in Sabinas, Coahuila.

Veracruz ranks second in confrontations between sailors and crime groups, the State where Los Zetas dominated, territory that was disputed with the Cartel del Golfo, and that today has a greater presence of CJNG.

Sinaloa is the third State where more battles have been waged by Naval personnel, there have been 17 documented clashes.

The second most spectacular blow by the Navy, after the fall of the leader of Los Zetas Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, El Z-40, on July 15th of 2013, in Anahuac, Nuevo Leon, occurred on February 22nd of 2014, in Mazatlan Sinaloa, where Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was recaptured.

On July 11th of 2015, El Chapo escaped from the maximum security prison of Altiplano, in the State of Mexico, which represented his second escape from a federal prison; On January 8th of 2016, the capo saved his life after a confrontation with the sailors in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, when he was pursued at kilometer 3.5 of the Mexico - Los Mochis - Navojoa highway, when El Chapo was pursued by Federal Police officers.

Morelos registers a single confrontation, but it is one of the most representative in the war against crime. On December 16th 2009, Navy special forces killed Arturo Beltran Leyva, El Barbas, leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, in an action that killed six more leaders of that criminal group.

Nayarit is one of the States where the confrontations of the Navy against gunmen are increasing, five have occurred; in Tepic, on February 9th, 2017, Naval personnel staged to clashes that led to the downing of leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez, El H2, and Daniel Isaac Silva Garate, El H 9.