Authorities and experts clash over presence of CJNG in Mexico City

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota
           
             

Official PGR reports contradict their current refusal to recognize the presence of the organization in Mexico City, while experts confirm it.

by RODRIGO GUTIÉRREZ GONZÁLEZ

Monday morning, narcomantas allegedly signed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) appeared on Periferico between Rio Hondo and Chihuahua in the Progreso neighborhood of the Alvaro Obregon delegation; illustrating an alleged immersion of the criminal group in the capital.

After this finding, the question arises: Does the CJNG operate in Mexico City?

This is what the authorities say

According to a document of the Attorney General's Office (PGR) obtained via transparency, dated November 2017, the CJNG is the drug trafficking group that has the most presence in the country.

Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Guerrero, Morelos and Veracruz are the eight states where the criminal organization has been detected.

As for Mexico City, the PGR rejects the existence of a drug trafficking group with marked territory, thus ruling out the Tláhuac Cartel.

However, in July of 2017, news program "En Punto" ensured that in a document made by federal authorities -without mentioning which document and by which authorities they had access to- it is pointed out that the CJNG had a presence in 17 states, among them Mexico City. That is, nine states more than those referred to by the PGR.

Those documents referred to by "En Punto" ruled out areas such as Michoacán, Colima and Veracruz, indicated by the PGR, and added Baja California, Baja California Sur, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Aguascalientes, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, State of Mexico, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Mexico City.

In 2015, based on an information request, the PGR reported in the official letter SJAI / DGAJ / 04529/2015 that in Mexico there are nine drug trafficking cartels that operate through 43 criminal cells. While the new Generation Jalisco cartel not only operates in Jalisco, but spread to Colima, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Guerrero, Morelos, Veracruz and Mexico City.

Previously, in 2015, the Deputy Attorney General for Organized Crime Investigation (Seido), referred to the presence of the CJNG in Mexico City.

In the same year, the Drug Control Administration (DEA) pointed out that five criminal groups have a "slight" presence in the capital: the Beltrán Leyva Cartel,  The Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, the Knights Templar, and the Sinaloa Cartel, without mention of the CJNG.

For his part, the head of the Mexico City Government, Miguel Ángel Mancera, reiterated once again that drug trafficking groups do not operate in the capital and that the self- proclaimed Tláhuac Cartel, the city government's main priority, is a violent organization but does not reach the level of a cartel.

This is what the experts say

Javier Oliva, specialist in public security and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), recommends taking the appearance of this narcomanta with some skepticism due to the political / electoral context that the country is experiencing, as well as in the capital.

"I do not rule out, in the variable of analysis, the electoral circumstances" says the specialist.

In an interview with La Silla Rota, Oliva mentions that the use of narcomantas in visible places to send messages has already been abandoned, "it has practically disappeared".

The UNAM researcher assures that the CJNG operates not only in Mexico City, but also in the greater Mexico City area, the State of Mexico.

He adds that not only the CJNG, but other criminal organizations of this type operate within the capital.

For Oliva, the interest of Mexico City for the cartels is the high consumption of drugs in the capital.

"The [consumer] market is very bulky," says Javier Oliva, adding: "Mexico City is a place of consumption, not of coming and going."

Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés, specialist in public safety and columnist in this publication, holds the theory that said narcomanta was placed by a criminal cell of the CJNG to intimidate a criminal enemy.

In this case, the criminal group would be Unión Tepito, a group that currently has an internal war with La U.

The Sánchez Valdés theory is strengthened after one of the subjects mentioned and threatened in the blanket was Víctor Hugo Ávila or Víctor Hugo Ramírez, "El Huguito", one of the leaders of La U, who was arrested last October, in Paseo de la Reforma, when he was carrying a merchant kidnapped in a van. Two days later he was released.

"Most likely, in fact, is that the manta’s author is the Unión Tepito that is still faithful to the people of "Pancho Cayagua" (founder of the criminal group killed in October last year). Cayagua people worked hand in hand with the CJNG "

"It's like when you hit the little brother and go for the big brother," says Victor Manuel. In this case the younger brother is the Unión Tepito and the big one is the CJNG. "Although in reality the older brother is not interested in coming to defend the younger one.”

On the reason for the presence of criminal organizations in the capital, Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés mentions that it is as much for drug dealing in the city as money laundering.

While the best profits are given outside the country, Sánchez Valdés sees local drug dealing as a sufficient gain with less risk, since the chances of being caught by authorities of a developed country that are more difficult to corrupt are higher than in a system like Mexico.

"When you have higher income, you have to put it one way or another into the financial system in order to try to get money that can be used in a legal way, that is, money laundering. Where is it difficult to launder more money? Where there's more money. Where does it call less attention to deposit large amounts of money? In very large cities. In our country there is Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Cancun, for the dimensions of the market "

      

Marines on an operation in Tláhuac

                       
For Sánchez Valdés, in Mexico City there are at least 10 organized crime groups operating. 

• The CJNG would operate in Tlalpan, Xochimilco, Coyoacán, Tláhuac and Iztapalapa. 
• The Sinaloa Cartel in the Cuauhtémoc, Miguel Hidalgo, Venustiano Carranza and Iztapalapa delegations. 
• The Zetas in the Cuauhtémoc and Iztapalapa delegations. 
• The Gulf Cartel in Gustavo A. Madero and Iztapalapa. 
• The Beltrán Leyva in Cuajimalpa, Miguel Hidalgo.
• The Knights Templar in Benito Juárez and Iztapalapa 
• La Familia Michoacana in Tlalpan, Magdalena Contreras, Gustavo A. Madero, Iztacalco, Tláhuac and Iztapalapa. 
• Guerreros Unidos in Tlalpan, Magdalena Contreras, Azcapotzalco, Cuauhtémoc, Gustavo A. Madero, Iztacalco, Coyoacán and Iztapalapa. 
• Cartel de Tláhuac in Tlalpan, Xochimilco, Coyoacán, Tláhuac, Iztapalapa and Milpa Alta. 
• The Tepito Union in Magdalena Contreras, Benito Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Gustavo A. Madero, Miguel Hidalgo, Iztacalco, Coyoacán, Venustiano Carranza and Iztapalapa.

Alejandro Hope, security analyst, in his article "Plata o Plomo," published today by El Universal, says that organized crime operates in Mexico City and the cases of Tláhuac and Tepito set an example.

About the CJNG, Hope relates “suspicion" that organization does have a presence in the capital, where they would move large quantities of drugs and wash money.

As for the narcomanta, Alejandro Hope doubts that it is the CJNG, since the activity of the cartels in the capital is more cautious.

So he puts some theories on the table:

•  It was placed by a local CJNG commander without permission from his bosses to intimidate rivals.

• False members of the CJNG are responsible, using the name of the cartel to perform other criminal activities such as extortion. This, clearly without the "permission" of the Jalisco cartel.

• An enemy group of the CJNG could have placed it as a distractor.