Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Alicia Bárcena yesterday demanded an investigation into how American military weaponry is increasingly turning up in Mexico. According to reporting by the Associated Press, Bárcena said that Mexico's Defense Secretary warned U.S. officials about the widespread prevalence of military arms, including belt-fed machine guns and grenade launchers, in the hands of Mexican criminal groups. The Mexican Defense Secretariat reported confiscating 221 automatic machine guns, 56 grenade launchers and about a dozen rocket launchers from criminals from late 2018 until June 2023.

The simple answer to how military arms from the U.S. are winding up in the hands of drug cartels is that, just like at least 70% of weapons that wind up in Mexico, grenade launchers and belt-fed machine guns are sold commercially in the United States.

It wasn't always this way. In 2011 Ohio Ordnance Works, a weapons manufacturer in Chardon, Ohio, introduced the first production line belt-fed M240 machine gun in a semi-automatic configuration to the U.S. civilian market.

While U.S. laws prohibit the sale of automatic weapons to civilians without a special manufacturer's license or a lengthy application and rigorous background check process for registered machine guns produced before 1986, Ohio Ordnance Works engineered a workaround that allowed them to offer a weapon system nearly identical to the M240 machine gun fielded by U.S. soldiers and marines for sale to civilians. By redesigning a few internal parts to not be considered "designed […] or readily restored" into an automatic weapon by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Ohio Ordnance Works overcame the only obstacle to selling an otherwise identical semi-automatic clone of the M240.

Not to be outdone, the American subsidiary of Belgian arms maker Fabrique Nationale Herstal created a new line of semi-automatic clones of the U.S. Army's M249 SAW for sale on the U.S. civilian market in late 2015.

Belt-fed machine guns for sale to civilians was a paradigm shift for the North American illicit market. Converting a semi-automatic belt-fed FN M249S to an automatic weapon is as simple as swapping out the fire control group and the operating rod assembly, no machining or drilling required. Conversion kits are sold commercially in the U.S. to certain federal firearms license-holders as well as on the black market.

It wasn't long before belt-fed machine guns functionally identical to the weapons used by the U.S. military started turning up by the hundreds in self-published cartel propaganda and seizures by the Mexican security forces.

Ohio Ordnance Works is owned by Robert W. Landies III, a former Marine and participant in the Capitol insurrection.

In January 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) awarded Ohio Ordnance Works a $26,141,125 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for receiver cartridges with a performance completion date in February 2024.

Despite Ohio Ordnance Works' status under DOD contract, the company made an illegal six-figure donation to the conservative Club for Growth Action Super PAC in February 2023, for which they received a fine from the Federal Elections Commission five months later.

An arms maker sympathetic to conservative politics is not unusual, but a DOD contractor whose owner participated in the Capitol riot producing what are essentially 80% machine guns flooding Mexico and ending up in the hands of the same violent criminal groups that Trump and other Republicans have expressed their intention to declare war on is extremely sus.

The following is a paraphrased translation of information shared with narco.news:

To understand what is happening in San Fernando, we must go back to the year 2016. In 2016, while the CARTEL DEL GOLFO (CDG) / ZETAS war had not ended, the CDG groups in Reynosa (METROS) and Matamoros (CICLONES) were both in their respective territorial zones. The Metros from Cd. Rio Bravo to Cd. Miguel Aleman, the CICLONES in Matamoros and Valle Hermoso, the PANTERAS with a presence in Soto la Marina, the ZETAS had a strong presence in Cd. Victoria, El Mante, Nuevo Laredo and San Fernando. In 2016, the ZETAS split up into two organizations: the ZETAS VIEJA ESCUELA (ZVE) and the CARTEL DEL NORESTE (CDN) in San Fernando. The head of the ZETAS was MARTIN JARAMILLO, alias "EL CHUECO" or "PATA DE QUESO", and the zone he controlled was San Fernando in its urban and rural areas in the towns of Cruillas, Burgos and Mendez (on the border with China, Nuevo León). When the ZETAS split, one of the first to be handed over was "PATA DE QUESO" and he died a few days later in a hospital while in custody.

When MARTIN JARAMILLO died, the people he had with him, the comandantes as they are called, some went with the CDN and others went with the ZVE, including "PEWE", "EL GANSO", and "EL CAMARÓN" (who is quite a character). When this happened, these guys didn't have a natural leader in that area and the CICLONES of Matamoros, already led by ALFREDO CÁRDENAS, alias "El CONTADOR", took advantage of the opportunity and formed an alliance with the ZVE of San Fernando, and people from the CICLONES (mainly from Valle Hermoso and some from Matamoros) started showing up and formed a hybrid group. Because of this the CICLONES (which are now known as the ESCORPIONES)—who already had a beef with the METROS of Reynosa, specifically with the group from Cd. Rio Bravo led by LUIS ALBERTO BLANCO, alias "EL PELOCHAS"—counted the METROS groups led by "PRIMITO" and "PÁNILO" as allies.

At the time, which was around 2018, CARLOS ROEL COLLAZO (not his real name), alias "CHUY7", appeared in San Fernando and he was appointed by the ZVE as head of San Fernando and the region and created the SIERRA group and began to relieve the comandantes of the ZVE of their command. As luck would have it, all of them are in jail on bogus charges fabricated by the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's office after being captured by the Tamaulipas State Police Special Operations Group (CAIET / GOPES).

After he relieved the ZVE comandantes of their command, he began to form his own chain of command with CRISTINO, alias "El PUMA" also known as "SIERRA 3" (who died in 2022), "LA PAWA" also known as "SIERRA 2", "LA BURBUJA", "EL CAPUYO" and another "*CONTADOR" from Paso Real in San Fernando (*not AFREDO CÁRDENAS), and they took control of that area (which is still a mix of ZVE and CICLONES from Matamoros and Valle Hermoso). In 2018, the alliance of "EL PRIMITO" and "EL CONTADOR" ended and "CHUY7" went to the side of "EL PRIMITO" and then the war against those from Matamoros and Valle Hermoso began. In reality, those from Matamoros tried to enter San Fernando and those from San Fernando tried to fend them off in 2020.

What happened in the last few days was that the CDG from Matamoros finally managed to enter San Fernando and establish themselves in that zone, but this time instead of trying to enter directly from Matamoros, they began to move the people they have in San Luis Potosi first to Cd. Victoria and from there to Jimenez and then to Burgos, Cruillas and Mendez to position themselves in San Fernando. The uparmored trucks that are seen in photos and videos with the initials "CJNG" in reality belong to the people of "CHUY7" in San Fernando. There is no presence of the CJNG. That brand was used because it is said that "PRIMITO" has an alliance with the CJNG, but in reality the group from San Fernando does not have very many people. San Fernando doesn't have many people because the Fuerza Civil in China, Nuevo Leon has been detaining people and killing them in confrontations since the end of last year, that is why we have not seen a response from them and why those from Matamoros haven't managed to position themselves in San Fernando until now.

There has been a lot of effort from people and social media accounts linked to former Tamaulipas Governor CABEZA DE VACA insisting that the CJNG is already present in Tamaulipas. This whole operation of the CDG in Matamoros started on Friday April 28th and the most intense part so far was on Sunday April 30th. The roadblocks in Matamoros, San Fernando and Reynosa in reality were to prevent the federal forces from moving from Reynosa and Matamoros to San Fernando, all this was while the ESCORPIONES were advancing towards San Fernando from the south.

What happened in San Fernando on Tuesday was that the CDG Matamoros ESCORPIONES arrived, there were confrontations with those from San Fernando and the Reynosa METROS. The strongest confrontations were in Cruillas, 35 km from San Fernando to the south, in one of those confrontations they killed PABLO MISAEL LARA, alias "PANTERA 24" and in another one JUAN NICOLAS CINTORA ROBLES, alias "EL NICO", in charge of Mendez, was seriously wounded by those from San Fernando. In the urban area of San Fernando it is said that the Escorpiones have already taken the plaza and that they continue advancing further south. It is also said that the San Fernando people have already abandoned the plaza because they removed furniture and things from the houses that "LA PAWA" had. It's rumored many of the sicarios and halcones have left and the great majority of them joined the ranks of the ESCORPIONES. Many more federal forces from SEDENA also arrived, but only one large convoy was seen on Tuesday in San Fernando, and after that there was no news of them patrolling.

Everything that was secured on Tuesday from the confrontations in Burgos municipality was taken to Matamoros, where the FGR's office is located. T here are two versions regarding the CJNG markings on the vehicles, one that says that the same people of "Chuy7" marked them to create the perception that they have the support of the Jalisco people and the other version is that it was the Tamaulipas state police who marked them.

During the gubernatorial campaign, both the PAN and CABEZA DE VACA were asking the cartels for help for CÉSAR VERÁSTEGUI, alias "EL TRUKO" in each zone and they told them that if MORENA won, DR. AMÉRICO VILLAREAL would give allow the Sinaloa cartel to enter the state, because DR. AMÉRICO was the delegate of MORENA in Sinaloa, at least that was their reasoning.

What happens in the state government is that most of the officials that CABEZA de VACA appointed have left, but also many who were middle management stayed where they were, for example OLGA CARRIZALES, her position during CABEZA DE VACA's administration was director of social readaptation for the prisons and with CABEZA DE VACA she was the undersecretary of social reintegration, which is in charge of prisons throughout the state and now with DR. AMÉRICO she stayed as director in the place she already was at and all the team working for her also stayed there, so in reality there was no change, why the military commanders who came to the state public security secretariat do not really know the state less the administrative and operational functioning of the secretariat and continue to manage the middle management related to CABEZA DE VACA and the same happens with most of the secretariats of the state government and on top of that most of the team of DR. AMÉRICO is a mixture of the cabinets of EGIDIO TORRE and EUGENIO HERNÁNDEZ, which are basically the same officials who delivered the institutions to the cartels.

The state attorney general's office and the state judiciary are 100% loyal to the CABEZA DE VACA, as for the CAIET-GOPES, the commanders were removed, but the vast majority of the troop elements of this group are still active within the state police.

In a recent essay for The Grayzone, Christian Parenti wrote that Donald Trump's greatest affront to the establishment was opposing foreign interventionism and ending "forever wars". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since last fall, a formal proposal from a clique of former Trump administration officials at the Center for Renewing America (CRA) for using military force against Mexican criminal organizations has been gathering support from the Republican mainstream.

The president of the CRA is Trump's former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russ Vought, who recently argued the merits of theocratic nationalism in an essay for Newsweek. Other Trump administration officials at the CRA include former shadow Secretary of Defense Kash Patel, former OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta, and former acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Ken Cuccinelli.

As former Trump Attorney General William Barr called for in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, the CRA proposal also recommends a formal statutory designation of cartels as "something distinct from but akin to" foreign terrorist organizations.

The proposal was advanced in the form of a bill at the beginning of the legislative session in January by Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who introduced the AUMF Cartel Influence Resolution that would authorize the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those foreign nations, foreign organizations, or foreign persons affiliated with foreign organizations" trafficking fentanyl or using violence and intimidation for establishing territorial control for illicit activities.

The bill has garnered support from 19 Republican co-sponsors including Congressman Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), who introduced a bill in 2021 calling for designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and far-right QAnon conspiracy theorist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

In comments on Twitter, Taylor Greene has suggested that the AUMF Cartel Influence Resolution would "use every tool available from increased criminal penalties, bypassing Democrat District Attorneys and prosecutors who refuse to apply existing federal laws and even denaturalization" or the revocation of citizenship.

The proposal for unilaterally using military force against the United States's top trading partner and neighbor with whom it shares a 1,954-mile land border is the logical next step for the proto-fascist movement that has taken over the Republican party since the election of Donald Trump in 2016. By transmuting the ideology of resentment, redemptive violence, national humiliation and revenge into an actual kinetic war against immigrants, drug dealers, drug consumers and the homeless internally and drug and human smuggling networks in Mexico, the movement hopes to turn MAGA's populist grievance politics into a national identity that projects military force outward in the name of combatting the unstoppable flow of illegal drugs to the world's largest consumer of them and repressive militarized policing inward in a purifying, cathartic national rebirth.

An October 2022 story in Axios reported that a group of former Trump administration officials and reactionary politicos was busy behind the scenes drafting plans to formally declare war on drug trafficking networks in Mexico, with or without the Mexican government's acquiescence, and a mechanism for punitively shutting down ports of entry based on estimated illegal crossing and asylum seeker numbers. The far-right nativist nonprofit advocating for war, the Center for Renewing America (CRA), includes the former director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russ Vought, former shadow Secretary of Defense Kash Patel, former OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta, former acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Ken Cuccinelli, as well as Joseph Wade Miller, a short-tempered former staffer for Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Chip Roy, Cruz's protégé.

According to tax filings published by SourceWatch, the CRA was founded on 22 December 2020 and is one of several 501(c)(3) political advocacy organizations launched in 2021 by the Conservative Partnership Institute, a far-right candidate grooming operation founded in 2017 by former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. Candidates developed by the Conservative Partnership Institute include QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene and anti-vaccination gun nut Lauren Boebert.

In 2017, DeMint was asked to resign from his position as president of the Heritage Foundation, a reactionary think tank whose board members include Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and director of the Mercer Family Foundation. Following his departure, DeMint started as a senior adviser at Citizens for Self-Governance, a far-right nonprofit calling for a convention to change the Constitution of the United States. The Mercer Family Foundation donated half a million dollars to Citizens for Self-Governance in 2014.

Meet the Mercers

Until he announced plans to step down at the end of the year in 2017, Robert Mercer was the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies hedge fund that used quantitative models and data analysis to make market predictions and generate unheard of returns for investors. An eccentric and reclusive man that volunteers several days a year as a reservist sheriff's deputy in New Mexico for the privilege of carrying a concealed weapon lawfully in all 50 states, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah rose to prominence as rightwing mega-donors through their namesake family foundation.

The Mercer Family Foundation has contributed more than $💯 million to far-right nativist political causes in the last decade or so. In addition to bankrolling campaigns for reactionary politicos such as Ken Cuccinelli, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, the Mercers have invested millions in alt-right media like Breitbart News and data exploitation ventures like Cambridge Analytica.

Robert Mercer attended graduate school at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he studied computer science under David G. Ravenhall and David J. Kuck in the Illinois Automatic Computer (ILLIAC) laboratory, earning a Ph.D. in 1972.

Two notable UIUC faculty members during Mercer's time in graduate school were psychologist Raymond B. Cattell and classics professor Revilo P. Oliver.

Raymond Cattell researched personality and motivation from a eugenicist perspective at UIUC from 1945 until his retirement in 1973, a year after Robert Mercer defended his dissertation. Cattell was drawn to UIUC in part because of the university's ILLIAC laboratory, which he used for factor analysis in his own research. In his controversial book Beyondism: Religion from Science, Cattell thanked Revilo Oliver for his help over the years in the preface.

Revilo Oliver was the co-founder of the John Birch Society that was later kicked out of the notorious far-right 'anti-communist' group for being too racist. Among other things, the John Birch Society peddled baseless and paranoid conspiracy theories (e.g. the fluoridation of drinking water as a communist mind-control plot) and advocated for a return to a gold-backed currency—a position also favored by Robert and Rebekah Mercer as well as the recipients of their patronage such as Ted Cruz.

A compelling circumstantial case has been made in the journal Nature that the influences and pseudoscientific racist views of Cattell, Oliver and their milieu are evident in the Mercer family's social network and political advocacy and too numerous to be easily dismissed as coincidental.

Revilo Oliver also mentored William Luther Pierce, the neo-Nazi founder of the National Alliance and pseudonymous author of the violent white power movement opus The Turner Diaries that mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh evangelized for years before and after committing the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in American history in Oklahoma City in 1995.

On the advice of Steve Bannon, the Mercers invested over ten million dollars in Breitbart News in June 2011 for a stake in the rightwing media company with the stipulation that Bannon would be on the board.

A New Way Forward

The proposal for a unilateral military invasion of the United States's top trading partner and neighbor with whom it shares a 1,954-mile land border is the logical evolution of a plan that originated deep in the heart of Texas during George W. Bush's second presidential term.

The project to consolidate the Wars on Drugs and Terror was set in motion in 2007 when Rick Perry, the Texas governor at the time, appointed Fred Burton to head the Border Security Council (BSC).

Burton was the vice president of counterterrorism at Stratfor, a private intelligence firm in the Texas capital described alternatively as "the shadow CIA" or perhaps "The Economist a week later and several hundred times more expensive."

The BSC was a lobbying group that used DHS discretionary funds for the protection of U.S. food supplies disbursed by the Texas Department of Agriculture to come up with policy suggestions to protect the Texas border from the purported threat of spillover violence from Mexico despite scant evidence of such a menace.

In 2011, on the advice of the BSC after the plan stalled with the election of President Barack Obama, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples enlisted the professional services of Gen. Robert Scales (U.S. Army, retired) with the consulting firm Colgen Inc. and Gen. Barry McCaffrey (U.S. Army, retired), the former Clinton drug czar and U.S. SOUTHCOM Commander from 1994-1996 (when members of the Mexican airborne special forces unit that later defected to form "Los Zetas" may have been trained in Guatemala).

McCaffrey and Scales were among a group of former military officials that the Department of Defense employed in a secret media relations and influence campaign that helped sell the public on the Iraq war and land contracts for private companies.

In September 2011, Colgen Inc. published a list of proposals for securing the Texas border, which included creating fusion centers to facilitate intelligence sharing between agencies, facilitating partnerships between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement, and designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

In November 2014, a little over a week after the Republicans won a majority in the Senate and held on to their majority in the House, a directive in The Southern Border and Approaches Campaign established Joint Task Force-West (JTF-West).

During the Republican presidential primaries, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, neo-reactionary billionaire Peter Thiel and Traditionalist Steve Bannon of Breitbart News initially expressed support for or donated to Ted Cruz or his announced running mate, Carly Fiorina, until Donald Trump's campaign turned out to be more than a self-promotional stunt.

Cruz also received support until the bitter end of his GOP primary campaign from Nelson Balido, an energy and border-industrial complex lobbyist, who wrote several gushing opinion pieces for the Fox New website on why Cruz was the best candidate for the GOP to take the presidency in 2016.

The GOP nomination and the 2016 presidential election ultimately went to Donald Trump.

In December 2016, CBP published a press release about the new direction for JTF-West, that would combine "seven federal law enforcement agencies’ efforts into one singular, coordinated strategy" in order to "identify, prioritize, and target the top criminal organizations impacting national security, border security and public safety."

Through JTF-West, CBP expanded their authority, autonomy and capabilities under the pretext of combatting the evolving threat to national security, according to them, posed by illegal immigration and drug and human trafficking organizations. Whereas before, CBP was somewhat of a pariah within federal law enforcement, the 2016 U.S. election effectively marked the beginning of "A New Way Forward," in which JTF-West would be "a key player in relations with Mexico by contributing to discussions between the two governments to improve security on both sides of the border."

Security and prosperity

Although not all of Mexico's politicians and police are corrupt, official corruption is widespread and persistent.

Tamaulipas, which abuts the Texas border from Brownsville to Laredo, has had an especially bad problem with official corruption, with each of the previous four governors facing criminal proceedings of some kind in the U.S. or Mexico, including Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca (October 2016-October 2022).

Cabeza de Vaca has a long history of reported ties to organized crime starting with his arrest in high school for stealing guns out of parked vehicles in Texas.

According to apparently leaked testimony from Antonio Peña Argüelles, a money launderer for the Zetas drug trafficking organization and protected witness for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Cabeza de Vaca has allegedly been compromised by organized crime since at least 2004 when he was said to have accepted $500,000 from the Gulf cartel for his campaign for mayor of Reynosa.

But you would never know it from reading Breitbart News' Cartel Chronicles, even though the corrupt Mexican politician is one of their favorite tropes. According to Breitbart, Cabeza de Vaca was standing up to the cartels.

Nor would you see anything but praise for Cabeza de Vaca on the Fox News website, like in this editorial from Nelson Balido, perhaps the single most important character in this story.

According to his CV, Balido completed graduate studies from 2005 to 2007 in International Affairs at the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University, home to the Presidential Library of George H. W. Bush.

Balido's recent titles include Chairman of the Border Commerce and Security Council (a lobbying firm representing defense and construction contractors and businesses offshoring manufacturing), Lieutenant Commander in Public Affairs with U.S. Southern Command, Consultant to the Undersecretary of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS, and US-Mexico Energy Relations Advisor.

According to Balido's May 2016 column, Cabeza de Vaca—mentioned 26 times in alleged criminal conspiracies in the Peña Argüelles' testimony—was "clean as a whistle."

According to Balido:

I can write with certainty that claims about Cabeza de Vaca being a 'narco senator' are completely baseless. He is as clean as a whistle. This conclusion is supported by the logical deduction that if Cabeza de Vaca had dealings with criminal organizations, he would not be able to travel as freely as he does in the United States, far more so than previous Tamaulipas governors who are wanted by U.S. law enforcement.

One line in Balido's column is particularly notable:

In Cabeza de Vaca, the United States finally finds someone who wants to collaborate at the state level.

Coincidentally, the Breitbart News Mexico team also shared this view. In a 2017 interview with Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz, co-creators along with Steve Bannon of Breitbart's “Cartel Chronicles”, Darby explained why working with Mexico at the state level would be preferable. According to Darby:

Under the Merida Initiative, it seems to be counterproductive to operate hand in hand with Mexican federal forces, as the Mexican president himself could (and seems) to have links with the cartels. Perhaps it would be much better to selectively interact with state governments.

In April of 2016, then-Senator Cabeza de Vaca and Nelson Balido met with officials from DHS, FBI, DoD, the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) and Army (SEDENA) to discuss a state-level binational plan for border security.

On June 5, 2016, Cabeza de Vaca was elected governor of Tamaulipas. Ten days after the election, U.S. CBP Rio Grande Valley Sector announced the launch of the Se Busca Información (Seeking Information) initiative targeting the 10 most wanted criminals in the region.

Although a partnership with the state government of Tamaulipas was not ceremoniously announced until June 2018, behind the scenes, the Mexican Navy and U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement were training a specially-vetted police unit from the ground up

In an October 2017 interview, the Tamaulipas Secretary of Economic Development, Carlos Talancón, described some of the training and assistance the U.S. was providing as well as an extermination campaign against the remaining "cockroaches."

According to Talancón:

We are terminating the different leaders. All their soldiers do not have money for gas. They have arms and they are stealing the cars to keep moving. We have a lot of military coming in. About 30 trucks have arrived in Rio Bravo. We are terminating the last cucarachos (cockroaches). They do not have funds, they do not have money, they are just looking around to see where they can get money because they are on their last legs. We are terminating them.

From approximately January 2017 until at least January 2019, the Tamaulipas state police trained with U.S. federal agencies, including the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), CBP, Border Patrol (BP), as well as state and local law enforcement agencies in Texas.

On June 7, 2018, a week after the Mexican Navy special forces were withdrawn from the state for what was later determined to be at least 47 forcible disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Nuevo Laredo (including one U.S. citizen), JTF-West formally announced the Campaign for Security and Prosperity. The campaign was designed to promote intelligence sharing and cooperation between Tamaulipas authorities and U.S. federal, state and local officials.

The ceremony was attended by CBP officials, Governor Cabeza de Vaca and Nelson Balido. A poster for the Se Busca Información initiative hung in the background.

But not everything has been secure and prosperous in Tamaulipas. Two of the state’s most important border cities, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, have suffered acutely from violence and insecurity.

Nuevo Laredo connects Monterrey, the financial capital of northeast Mexico, to I-35 in Laredo, Texas. The enormous volume of commerce that moves through the border city makes it the single most important commercial crossing in all of Mexico. Cártel del Noreste (CDN), a faction formerly with Los Zetas, is the predominant criminal organization in the area.

Reynosa also connects to Monterrey and is the largest city in Tamaulipas with many of the maquilas where goods are assembled with cheap labor. The area around Reynosa is also where a majority of human smuggling into the U.S. takes place. The Metros faction of the Gulf cartel is the predominant criminal organization in the city.

Tamaulipas politicos, petroleum companies and the Gulf cartel in Matamoros—the criminal rivals of CDN and the Metros faction of the Gulf cartel—are interested in the valuable, hydrocarbon-rich territories in and around Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa.

Although the Matamoros factions of the Gulf cartel are among the oldest and most established criminal networks in Mexico, the Tamaulipas government under Governor Cabeza de Vaca devoted the majority of its efforts to prosecuting criminal groups in Reynosa and especially Nuevo Laredo.

How exactly criminal organizations and individuals are prioritized is unclear, but the complex relationship between organized crime and politics in Tamaulipas may be a factor. According to the Peña Argüelles' testimony, Cabeza de Vaca allegedly got his start in Tamaulipas politics with half a million dollars from the Gulf cartel in Matamoros.

If the allegations are true, the Cabeza de Vaca administration’s approach to security could be one of pacification of certain mafiosos that pay to conduct their business without being disturbed and persecution of their rivals.

But the support for this approach is not just from the Tamaulipas government. Breitbart News and Republican Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, Ted Cruz's former Chief of Staff, also favor prioritizing certain groups.

In fact, Congressman Roy and 15 Republican co-sponsors favored this approach so much that they wrote the Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act (House Resolution 1700) in 2019 that called for codifying the prioritization strategy. The original bill would have designated CDN, Los Metros and CJNG (a group rumored to have an alliance with Los Metros) as foreign terrorist organizations.

Congressman Roy later announced a revised version of the bill in April of 2021 which specified only CDN and the Metros faction of the Gulf cartel. The two largest and most powerful drug trafficking networks in Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel and CJNG, were not included in the bill.

In February of 2020, Congressman Chip Roy wrote the Border Visibility and Security Act, which would compel the U.S. to purchase a variety of surveillance tech such as ground radar and other sensors for detecting human movement, clear vegetation along the Rio Grande and build roads along the U.S. side of the border.

As luck would have it, a majority of the supporters that Nelson Balido's 501(c)(3) Border Commerce and Security Council represents are surveillance tech, infrastructure and contracting companies and manufacturers interested in cheap labor in Mexico.

In effect, the Border Visibility and Security Act would hand billions of dollars in business to companies whose interests are represented by Nelson Balido, a lobbyist with ties to SOUTHCOM, DHS, Ted Cruz and Chip Roy—Cruz's former Chief of Staff and the bill's author—and a governor in Tamaulipas allegedly beholden to the Gulf cartel.

Narcoterror & "a major messaging operation"

Coined in 1983, the term 'narcoterrorism' was originally applied to violent drug trafficking organizations in Colombia and Peru. In Mexico, the concept of narcoterrorism has gained popularity in academic literature since at least 2008, primarily in reference to Los Zetas.

A 2009 paper apparently written as a part of graduate coursework at the online American Military University proposed creating an interagency task force for sharing intelligence in an effort to combat the threat posed to U.S. law enforcement (particularly Border Patrol) by "the Los Zetas narco-terrorist organization."

In Mexico, several popular anonymous social media personas that post crime scene photos and execution videos also refer to certain criminal groups as "narco-terrorists."

These anonymous personas first appeared with advent of Twitter in the late 2000s and early 2010s when the record levels of violence in Mexico began. While most of these citizen journalists are amateurs bringing an uncensored look at the violence in Mexico by posting content leaked by first responders and citizens in private WhatsApp groups, some of them may be getting paid by Breitbart News for content.

In a 2017 interview with Breitbart News' Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz, Ortiz recalled that Steve Bannon suggested that they just hire citizen journalists during their initial brainstorming session for Cartel Chronicles in 2014. According to Ortiz:

Our initial objective was to focus on tweeters, local journalists and citizen journalists at risk, who cannot say what is happening in the areas controlled by the cartels. Bannon then said to me, 'Hire them,' and we thought between the three of us about how these people could contribute and communicate real, unfiltered information.

Brandon Darby has also admitted to paying citizen journalist sources during a panel with Jack Posobiec and Ann Coulter at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit in December 2019. According to Darby:

"When we looked at the border problems, we realized that some people covered the border on the north side and the U.S. side, but not so much, and no one was really covering the border on the south side, right? So the entire border wasn't being covered and we tried to figure out why, and what we realized was that no one was covering it on the south side because everyone who did got murdered, and so no one would cover it. And we said, 'wait a minute, we're, like, Breitbart, right? We can't just—y'know, we're supposed to be a voice for the voiceless. We're supposed to stand up for the little guy, for the citizen journalist.' So what we did was we went there and we started finding people in the communities who wanted to speak out, or who were speaking out under pseudonyms or under anonymous social media accounts, and we said, 'hey, wait a minute; you're risking your life to fight these cartels on the border and 500 people see what you say on Twitter, right? On your anonymous account; why don't you send that stuff to me and I'll pay you and then we're going to publish it in English and Spanish and we'll throw the whole weight of what Breitbart has politically behind it to make sure that Americans know what's happening here."

Curiously, Darby went on to claim that Breitbart News had been paying citizen journalists for approximately 2 to 3 years before the creation of Cartel Chronicles in 2014.

"And so what we've seen is that since we've been doing that roughly 7 or 8 years ago [i.e. approximately 2011-2012], people care now, and the more people that care, the more people who listen to this message and the more people who see what's happening, they care, then the Republicans start using it as talking points, and eventually, we hope it translates into actual policy, which we're maybe starting to see, like, we have a president talking about cartels, which is the biggest thing in the world."

In a 2019 interview for the PBS series Frontline, Steve Bannon elaborated his views on border security and persuading President Trump, known for propounding and later walking back some of his administration's hard-line mandates. According to Bannon, tough policies like criminally prosecuting anyone caught entering the country illegally required persuading the American public as well as the President who responded the most to what he saw in the media.

Bannon:

"What I’m concerned about is this takes a major messaging operation. You have to explain—the American people are kind of detached from the details of what’s happening on the southern border. They’re particularly detached, I think, about the reality of what’s happening in Central America. They’re detached about, you know, this cauldron, right, that’s on the southern border, particularly how it’s been not just militarized by—particularly in northern Mexico and the cartel wars of the Mexican authorities against the cartels, but how the cartels are winning. You know, in many regards, northern Mexico and even some of the southern United States along the border, as people down there will tell you, are like Afghanistan to a degree that it’s an actual war going on and an insurgency.

And so my concern at the time is that, you know, not just people hadn’t thought three moves down, but maybe the messaging is not well enough, and the battlefield’s not prepared enough to—it just kind of dropped. And understanding President Trump, President Trump is always going to respond to what he sees in the media and what—he’s a marketing guy. He’s going to— he’s going to respond. And if this thing’s not—not messaged properly, and people don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish, then I think you can have some—some blowback."

In late 2019, the proposal to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations seemed to have finally persuaded President Trump. In the aftermath of the massacre of the Mormon family in Agua Prieta, Sonora in November 2019, President Trump stated in an interview that he intended to designate unspecified Mexican drug cartels as terrorists.

Brandon Darby, Ildefonso Ortiz and Chip Roy were elated by the news.

Trump never followed through with the proposal because a terrorist designation could have substantiated claims for asylum at the border, potentially hurting his reelection bid.

Regardless, the justification for a terrorist designation specifically for CDN and Los Metros, who have no significant presence outside of northeastern Mexico, is not justified based on recent violent crime data.

In fact, the northeastern Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, which the Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act is explicitly targeting, are all below the national average for homicide and violent crime and have been for the last several years. Between 2018 and 2019, homicide numbers in Tamaulipas actually decreased.

So why exactly do they want to designate these specific groups as terrorist organizations? Brandon Darby explained it bluntly in a webcast:

"The reality of Mexico is this: they're very resource rich. There's plenty of resources in Mexico. The problem is, is that many of the regions along the border, those resources can't be exploited because of the security situation and because of the corruption situation, which is largely due to the security situation. So, though I don't suggest we engage in direct economic development in Mexico when we need it in our own country so badly in so many areas like inner cities and rural areas, I mean, you go down the line—but what we can do is address those security situations. We can more aggressively go after the rest of those people in the organized criminal circles so they fall in line with other places so that businesses are more able to invest in Mexico and invest in resource exploitation, and what have you. It's all about the security situation. Uh, the security situation... take Coahuila. Coahuila is along the U.S.-Mexico border, along the Texas border, tons of oil, but we can't exploit that oil because in order to exploit the oil, the cartels are gonna steal the gas, the cartel, I mean you go down the line."

But that's not the end of the story.

While part of the motivation for a terrorist designation among Texas politicos is surely concerned with reducing risk for companies interested in Mexico's natural resources, nothing that Bannon or his patrons have done or said suggests that that they're neoconservative military adventurists at heart.

Bannon cites French esotericist René Guénon and Italian fascist Julius Evola as gurus on his journey to Dark Enlightenment. Robert Mercer's philosophical influences have already been discussed. Rapacious oilmen they are not.

The idea of reviving the War on Terror three years after the end of the GWOT and combining it with the War on Drugs is not a rational proposal for addressing the drug problem and belongs in the same canon as Russia's "special military operation" to "denazify" Ukraine. The proposals to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, to drone strike Mexican civilians, to deputize border militias, and to send American troops into Mexico are instrumentalist policies to achieve goals that have nothing to do with drug control.

In an interview with Joshua Greene, Bannon summarized the recipe for state capture by establishing control over “borders, currency, and military and national identity."

The proposal to instigate a war in Mexico should be thought of as a ploy to establish control of both the military and national identity by fomenting a security crisis at the border from the extremely predictable consequences of unilaterally using military force against a neighboring country. The resulting militarization of the border will create a positive feedback loop with a far-right nativist political project until an authoritarian regime seizes power or secedes.

In an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal last week, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr wrote a belligerent screed calling for the unilateral use of military force against "narco-terrorist cartels" in Mexico. According to Barr, the number of overdose deaths, which skyrocketed during the Trump administration and Barr's latest turn as Attorney General, as well as the economic costs from illegal drugs have made it necessary to act "decisively" by authorizing the use of U.S. military force against "the cartels".

Barr claims that almost all drugs coming from Mexico are controlled by two cartels located predominantly in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Jalisco, but that assertion ignores the ground truth that paints a much more complicated picture.

According to a study published by the International Crisis Group, at least 463 distinct criminal groups have been documented throughout Mexico from mid-2009 through 2019, a figure that's grown over time and includes at least 135 cells of larger criminal networks like the so-called Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation, Gulf, Beltran Leyva, Familia Michoacana, Arellano Felix, Juarez and Zetas drug cartels. So which ones exactly do Bill Barr and his Republican colleagues want to sic the U.S. military on?

Mr. Barr claims that the head of the drug supply chain, which he likens metaphorically to a snake, is located in Mexico and suggests focusing U.S. efforts there despite a complex global supply chain of chemical precursors and a pipeline of cocaine stretching from the Andean Mountains in South America through Central America and the Caribbean by land, air and sea.

As proof of how efficacious this approach would be, Barr asserts that the U.S. and Colombian governments managed to eliminate the Medellín and Cali cartels in the early 1990s.

He's right in a sense. Most of the main characters from the arbitrary, fictional categories dubbed the Medellín and Cali drug cartels are either dead or in prison, or have mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth (or graduated to illustrious careers in Colombian politics).

Unfortunately, cocaine production nevertheless managed to grow exponentially in Colombia since then in spite of the downfall of its mythical overlords. In other words, less than nothing was accomplished in terms of reducing the cocaine supply, undermining Barr's own justification for war.

Without any detectable traces of irony or shame, the former Attorney General then states the following:

Mexican cartels have flourished because Mexican administrations haven’t been willing to take them on. The exception was President Felipe Calderón (2006-12) who wanted to go full bore against the cartels, but American priorities were elsewhere at the time.

Less than two weeks after a federal jury adjudicated former Mexican President Felipe Calderón's Secretary of Public Security guilty on all five counts of conspiring with the world's largest and most powerful drug cartels to traffic multiple tons of cocaine to the U.S. for two decades, Bill Barr has the absolute balls to claim that the former president—described in sworn testimony as taking millions of dollars in blood money in exchange for favoring Mexico's most prolific drug traffickers—was the only one willing to take on the cartels.

It almost seems like Barr is disappointed with the guilty verdict in a case that Bill Barr's own appointee and confidant, Seth DuCharme, oversaw as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Barr then goes on to drag current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador:

Today, the cartels’ chief enabler is President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO. When he came to power at the end of 2018, he announced the switch to a policy of “hugs, not bullets” and shut down counternarcotics cooperation with the U.S. Under strong pressure from President Trump, he occasionally engaged in a high-profile operation to create the illusion of cooperation, but these were smoke screens. In reality, AMLO is unwilling to take action that would seriously challenge the cartels. He shields them by consistently invoking Mexico’s sovereignty to block the U.S. from taking effective action.

But let's back up just a moment. In the final days of Barr's tenure in the Trump administration, former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos (2012-2018) was arrested at the Los Angeles airport in October 2020 and charged with a multi-ton cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin trafficking conspiracy. The case was prosecuted by the Eastern District of New York with Seth DuCharme at the helm.

The arrest was a system shock to U.S.-Mexico relations because the investigation of Cienfuegos had been kept strictly secret with no coordination with Mexican partners, who felt blindsided by the arrest. Mexico protested and suggested that security cooperation would suffer as a result which resulted in none other than Attorney General William P. Barr dropping all charges and releasing Cienfuegos days after Trump lost the election.

In other words, the Cienfuegos investigation—which had been important enough to risk damaging relations with Mexico by not coordinating with them—was suddenly not as important as preserving relations with Mexico when that's precisely what happened. The most powerful Mexican official ever charged with a drug trafficking crime was released with a stroke of Bill Barr's pen so that the U.S. and Mexico could keep chasing El Chapo's idiot sons.

Now, two weeks after a guilty verdict in the Genaro García Luna trial, Bill Barr wants to unleash the American war machine, fresh off a 20-year misadventure in Afghanistan, on the country we share a 1,951 mile land border with, unilaterally if necessary, while the Russian invasion of Ukraine drags into its second year and a conflict between China and Taiwan looms on the horizon. 🤨🤔

I don't have permission to reprint this article from the Mexico Violence Resource Project and I can't justify copy/pasting it because it's already in english, but it's important that you read it because it's the best analysis about the Genaro García Luna trial and verdict that I've read in any language. Read it for yourself here.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outlined the concept for a role-playing board game titled Kingpin about the hunt for notorious Cártel de Sinaloa brand ambassador Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera in handwritten notes dated from approximately August through October 2015. The game consisted of opposing Hunter and Cartel teams with the former coordinating intelligence collection and enforcement actions in their pursuit while the latter attempted to elude detection and capture. The game was created as a training exercise to illustrate the principles of intelligence collection and operational planning against an adversary in a foreign nation within the constraints of the environment.

The game was debuted to the public by the Agency at their panel discussion and recruiting drive at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in March 2017.

Following reports about the CIA's panel at SXSW by Sam Machkovetch published in Ars Technica, investigative journalist Douglas A. Palmer with MuckRack submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiry for information about the Kingpin game in June 2017.

The documents responsive to the inquiry were approved for released by the CIA on 27 November 2017 and the documents were released to Palmer and MuckRack on 18 March 2018.

Among the documents published by MuckRack, a set of "Nexus to Support" cards used in the game featured a list of El Chapo's personal acquaintances and the support each provided, with one name in particular standing out: Genaro García Luna.

García Luna was formerly Mexico's equivalent of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the architect of the so-called "War on Drug Traffickers". In Kingpin, García Luna was featured as a nexus of political support for El Chapo, helping the cartel leader with finances, logistics and communications.

Genaro García Luna was arrested in Dallas after deboarding a flight from Mexico on 9 December 2019 and charged with a cocaine trafficking conspiracy spanning from January 2001 until the time of his arrest almost two decades later.

While the news of his arrest reverberated in both the U.S. and Mexico, the news wasn't exactly unexpected since allegations of collusion with major drug traffickers have followed García Luna throughout his career. His relationship with the Sinaloa cartel was so well established that the CIA apparently thought nothing of including him in El Chapo's support network in their training game.

At the end of his tenure as Mexico's Secretary of Public Security in December 2012, García Luna left the public sector to form his own company, a security consulting firm called GLAC Consulting. With offices in Mexico City and Miami, GLAC's executive board comprised a who's who of former American, Colombian and Spanish law enforcement and intelligence officials, including Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former Director of CIA's Clandestine Services famous for destroying the Agency's videotaped torture sessions.

Ironically, while the CIA was recruiting creative young people at SXSW in 2017 with a board game about hunting the world's most notorious drug lord, the CIA's own former Director of Operations was working on the board of a company owned by a man identified by the Agency as a "nexus of support" for El Chapo.

By J. Jesús Esquivel

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Proceso) - The orders received by the Baja California Ministerial Police Task Force in 2007 were unequivocal: terminate the Arellano Félix brothers' criminal organization and protect the Sinaloa cartel's people, the only surviving member of the Task Force told Proceso.

"Deputy Attorney General Victor Felipe de la Garza Herrada from the Organized Crime Division briefed us and said that the orders came from Mexico City, from the top level of the Secretariat of Public Security" (SSP) of the Mexican federal government.

"De la Garza Herrada, codename 'Lima 1', told us that he was not receiving orders from Governor Eugenio Elorduy Walther (PAN), but directly from the SSP, from Secretary Genaro García Luna," the former member of the Baja California Task Force recalled.

Youthful and nearing 40, the subject of this interview has since left Baja California and Mexico to avoid being eliminated like the rest of his colleagues from the Task Force, later designated the Specialized Unit Against Organized Crime (UECCO). He recounted everything they did in Tijuana and Mexicali to "wipe out" the Arellano Félix organization and give the Sinaloa cartel carte blanche in the region.

"We were one of two classes from the academy that joined the Task Force created by the PAN governments (President Felipe Calderón at the federal level and Governor Elorduy Walther at the state level); they gave us special training and we almost always operated in plain clothes," he recalled.

As proof of his past assignment and the operations he carried out, the former cop provided Proceso with official documents issued by the government of Baja California that accredited him for duty, and certificates of recognition for his work, as well as signed and sealed documents about federal depositions in the Altiplano Maximum Security Prison in the State of Mexico.

The former officer spoke with Proceso on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals against his life and the lives of his family.

Command structure

"I joined the Task Force in 2004, but there was a previous class that was in the Kidnapping Division; we received specialized military training," said the former cop who quit the force in 2009 after realizing that his life in Mexico was in danger.

Sitting on a bench in a public square for this interview, the former officer affirmed that the Task Force was trained to operate against the Arellano Félix organization by three members of the Airborne Special Forces Group (GAFES) of the Mexican Army.

"They trained us for six months in Tecate; we were all pretty young," said the man who after resigning from the UECCO began working in Baja California as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other U.S. federal agencies.

"I also worked with ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] buying weapons in the United States: AK-47s, AR-15s, .50 caliber rifles, military weapons. I bought them on the black market so that the American agents could arrest the people that trafficked them to Mexico; they wanted to give the impression that they were doing something," he added.

His work as an informant for U.S. agencies paid off. His experience in Tijuana and Mexicali working undercover made it easier for him to leave Mexico and start a life in the United States.

The subject of this interview described the chain of command that operated during the Calderon administration, allegedly on the orders of García Luna, in favor of the Sinaloa cartel in Baja California: Elorduy Walther; in the Mexican capital, 'licenciado Lima' [Lima attorney-at-law], codename "Lima Lima", who held the same level of authority as the governor, codename "Lima 1"; Alonso Ulises Méndez Gómez, coordinator of the UECCO, codename "Lima 2"; Commander Salvador Salas Landaverde; the incumbent public prosecutor Luis Felipe Chan Baltazar; other public prosecutors identified as licenciado Angel Vizcarra, licenciada Clara, licenciado Chinchorro; Martin Guzman Montelongo, "El Caballo", head of the Homicide Division; "Navarrete", head of the Kidnapping Division; and below them, the plainclothes special agents.

"All the arrests we made were people belonging to the Arellano Félix organization, which was led at the time by Francisco Arellano Félix, aka 'El Tigrillo', and Jorge Briseño Lopez, aka 'El Cholo'," said the former police officer.

Under commander Salvador Salas Landaverde, the UECCO was specifically tasked with clearing a path into Baja California for the Sinaloa Cartel, the factions led by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera in particular, according to the former officer.

"The commander was accountable only to the governor and 'Lima Lima', the lawyer in Mexico City, who told us that he was the principal liaison of the SSP in the matter," the former member of the Task Force said.

He never learned the first name of the chief who operated from the capital, but acknowledged that "'Lima Lima' was the highest ranking and he reported directly to García Luna exclusively rather than Mexico's Attorney General or the governor or attorney general of Baja California."

Torture Center

The UECCO plainclothes agents' base of operations was a safe house (ordered demolished at the end of García Luna's tenure in charge of the SSP) located at an unnumbered address in Mexicali on 55th Street on the corner of Lázaro Cárdenas Boulevard in the Hidalgo neighborhood, ZIP code 21090.

"In our headquarters there were holding cells, torture chambers and facilities with technical equipment for intercepting telephone calls and tracking location with satellite data."

According to the subject of this interview, all the associates of the Arellano Félix organization captured by the Task Force ended up at this safe house.

The former cop explained that agents with the Task Force were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "They paid us well, about $25,000 pesos [approximately $2,200 USD at the time] per month; it was all federal funds. We had an unlimited budget. We had four armored vans. De la Garza Herrada had two armored cars, a blue Tahoe and a gray one, he had a personal security detail with him at all times."

"The detainees were tortured with plastic bags, sometimes they were wrapped in plastic sheets. They were restrained on the ground and then a plastic bag was placed over their heads to suffocate them. Sometimes they'd stomp on their stomach," he recalled.

The former officer paused to emphasize the level of sadism that Garcia Luna allowed his personnel to use against the enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel.

"They were masterly at torture, Salas Landaverde and De la Garza Herrada. De la Garza Herrada especially. He was a complete psychopath. I can tell you that because I saw him, he actually enjoyed torturing people with plastic bags and other horrible methods."

"After our time in Baja California, they were hired in Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Sonora and I don't know where else," explained the former cop, who shuddered recalling the torture with the plastic bag. He confided that they also tortured him.

The former agent maintained that during the years he was a member of the Task Force, although they also arrested drug traffickers from other organizations, human rights were violated and murders were committed on the direct orders from the SSP to help the Sinaloa Cartel.

"They applied the law in violation of the law and they were doing it all to protect and defend a cartel," the subject said during the interview.

The special intelligence and military training that the former agent received is evident in the way he acts and observes his surroundings, perhaps fearful for his safety. The interview was conducted in a public, open place, but he constantly looks over his shoulder. He has his back to a wall so that no one surprises him from behind.

"A lot of money was also handled; every time we arrested someone they gave us money, depending on who was arrested, but regularly it was between $20,000 and $50,000 dollars; they also asked for money for Chan Baltazar and for Salas Landaverde," he said.

Repentance

The former agent admitted that his motive for giving an interview was a desire for atonement, which led him to seek out Proceso to describe what he did, although several years have elapsed.

"When Salas Landaverde called us to a meeting at the safe house for special cases, no matter what time it was, we had to arrive disguised with the operational attire, which was a black and gray military uniform with the SCDO (Deputy Attorney General - Organized Crime Division) insignia.

"We were always on our way to hit some corner. Sometimes there were bullets, sometimes not. The truth is that the narcocorridos aren't true. These dudes don't always stick around; when they see these convoys they don't stick around. A lot was said about the Arellano Félix people, but in most cases they surrendered. In order to leave no trace, UECCO didn't keep the members of the Arellano Félix organization in Tijuana after they were arrested in the border city."

"We would take them to Mexicali, to the safe house in the Hidalgo neighborhood and directly to the torture room on the second floor. Salas Landaverde always focused on the torture and asking them which agents were working with them; names… names. After kicking their ass and getting the information out of them, SEIDO would take them to Mexico City. All this was done within 72 hours, they were quickly sorted out, they were forced to sign their statements blindfolded and we took them to the airport, where the SEIDO plane was already waiting for them. In the years that I worked with my group, we probably detained over a hundred people. All members of the Arellano Felix network, none of them from the Sinaloa cartel. Everything we did was illegal, any of us could have been arrested.

To corroborate his account, the former officer provided Proceso with original document number 2043, dated June 21, 2007, corresponding to the criminal case against Héctor Adrián Gutiérrez Elenes, aka "El Cachorro", and others for the charges of organized crime; about a deposition carried out at the CERESO No. 1, El Altiplano, in Almoloya de Juárez, Mexico State.

Salas Landaverde was strict and clear with the UECCO agents who were under his orders and in compliance with the instructions he received from the SSP through De la Garza Herrada: do not touch the Sinaloa drug traffickers and annihilate the Arellano Felix Cartel.

According to the former agent: "When we ended up stopping people from Sinaloa or we had an investigation going, Salas Landaverde would call us and tell us: 'Hey, assholes, that's a 98!' which means: 'let them go.' One time—I mention this because I had very good informants, better informants than theirs, friends of mine—I was investigating a Sinaloa narco who was independent, a "pierced ear", he wasn't with the Sinaloa cartel, it was a case of "An informant told me about a jackpot that was coming, $6o,000 dollars. Fuck 'em, they're a couple of faggots', that's what he told me. I have nothing against people who are gay by the way; and I told him it was cool but I never took a step without wearing shoes, so to speak, and I told my bosses what I was going to do. I stopped them, but as soon as I stopped them, Salas Landaverde arrived and so did my informant. Salas Landaverde went against my informant, he interrogated him about who these two dudes were with, about the murders of the Arellano Félix people, and when he realized that they weren't the people they were protecting, he kept the money and let them go. If they had been from the Sinaloa Cartel, he would have let them go with all the money, because the orders from the SSP were very clear: 'Don't.'" The former Mexican agent and U.S. federal informant was regretful, he maintained that he was not coerced and assured that he never found out the name and surname of 'Lima Lima', the shadowy character who together with Elorduy Walther and De la Garza Herrada dictated the orders that came from García Luna.

"I saw him in person when he went to Mexicali, but obviously he was the proxy for García Luna. We had a budget most people would kill for, the best weapons, everything; we were a group without limits," he added.

He affirmed that the efficiency of decimating the Arellano Felix with the objective of clearing the Tijuana and Mexicali plazas for the Sinaloa cartel was so effective that perhaps the last bastion of strength and lethality of the criminal group that for years dominated that northern Mexican border city ended with the capture of "El Cachorro".

"What is happening now and what is being blamed on the Arellano Felix is being done by a bunch of filthy punks; these aren't professionals. They did a great job for the Sinaloa cartel. Tijuana is a cesspool, but it's nothing like it was before; Garcia Luna's people did an excellent job for the Sinaloa Cartel, they paid a lot of dollars," he acknowledged. Among the operators that Garcia Luna had in the Baja California State Attorney General's Office during the Elorduy Walther administration dedicated to looking after the Sinaloa cartel's interests, in addition to the UECCO, in another organizational chart—which he drew by hand and gave to Proceso—the former agent points to Juan Manuel Perez Fajardo, "El Ave Negra", who had the hitters under his command; Antonio Martínez Luna, "El Blindado"; the local prosecutor, Humberto Valdez, "El Pato"; Fernando Villegas Delgado, Nando Villegas or Armando Villegas; José Ramón Valdez, commander.

"I saw many people die, both among the police and from criminals, but I didn't want to be one of those; I left and got out in time," the former officer said.

Arrested in December 2019 in Dallas by DEA agents, Genaro García Luna is accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of drug trafficking and protecting factions within the Sinaloa Cartel since he his tenure as director of the Federal Investigation Agency, in the administration of former President Vicente Fox, and then as head of the SSP during the presidency of Felipe Calderón.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over his case, Brian Cogan, of the Eastern District of New York, ruled that García Luna's trial will begin on January 9, 2023, although the friend and advisor to Felipe Calderón still has the option of pleading guilty and becoming a cooperating witness to avoid being sentenced to life imprisonment if found guilty.

Translated from the story by J. Jesús Esquivel originally published in Proceso.

The two largest organized crime groups (OCGs) in Mexico clash for logistical dominance in the centrally located state of Zacatecas. Uniquely shaped and bordered by 8 states, two of which border the United States. Zacatecas holds vital importance to the efficiency of trafficking logistics countrywide. OCGs are not interested in the state as a place to grow or produce illicit drugs. The interest lies in its highways. These groups are no longer only drug trafficking organizations. They transport all sorts of contraband. Most notable aside from illicit drugs are guns. But also migrants, counterfeit goods, stolen gasoline. In urban areas, groups run extortion rackets and sell illicit drugs. An OCG with a dominate presence in the state could ensure goods move uninterrupted. Furthermore, they could deny rivals the same benefit and disrupt. Plus, profit from the local racket and black market. The state in the last couple years has seen violence reach unprecedented levels as the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) works to prevent its foothold from being taken.

BALAM, Miguel and I have created a map to aid in visualizing the conflict between OCGs in Zacatecas. It details areas we believe they have established a presence in. The map also highlights three primary areas OCGs focus on at the moment. In simplest terms, presence is a measure of activity. So, collecting and considering as much open source information (OSINF) as possible is best. But, given the inherent secrecy of criminal groups and the variety of places OSINF originates, comprehensive collection is difficult. Not to mention, understanding presence requires knowing how OCGs operate in Mexico.

What I think is most important to keep in mind is that, unlike traditional conflict maps, these areas are not all taken by force. When we speak of established presence, what this means in practical terms is an OCG would be in collusion with authorities in the area, be the dominant racketeer, and hold majority market share in the street sale of illicit drugs. Most important would be collusion, since without it the other two become almost unachievable. But, an OCG need not all three to have a so-called established presence. So it requires digging deeper to unravel what's going on. We need to consider incentives for why OCGs do what they do. Gain an awareness of situations outside the areas in question to see how they're influenced. Think about the past and how things have progressed to this point. Decipher narratives put forth by OCGs and the government. Altogether, this makes determining presence not a straightforward process. How OCGs operate in one state is not how they will operate in every state. Each state is going to present unique challenges and must be approached with an open mind.

Illustrating the answers to all these questions is beyond the capabilities of a map. There is a lot of background needed to interpret what's going on. A lot of it is beyond this article too. But maps provide a perspective that only they can. Thinking about and looking at maps, less obvious aspects become more obvious. One thing often overlooked in the day-to-day is how geography affects things. Also, border states, highways and roadways.  

The non-profit ACLED keeps track of violence from conflicts around the world. Their data provides a good example of the difficulties in collection. Not all incidents are related to organized crime, and, understandably not all can be attributed to a specific group. Below is a map I created that shows their data from 2002 to 2022. Each dot represents a violent incident. One can imagine how a narrower time frame would be insufficient to interpret recent conflicts in Mexico. This is not a criticism but to highlight the difficulties in building maps of organized crime with comprehensive data.

I've been watching this stuff for years. It can be more than a full-time job if your collection is all manual. Not only do you need to collect, you then need to file and keep organized. You can't rely on only a single piece of information to record an incident, but need to crosscheck by collecting extra sources. So it's not surprising they don't have people sitting there 40+ hours a week sifting through information on Mexico for incidents to investigate. The Mexican government releases more comprehensive data. But it offers no sign to which OCGs are responsible for any of it. It also is by municipality and offers no GPS coordinates like the ACLED data set. It does, though, provide a better look at municipalities affected most by violence. Below is a map using that data created by the press outlet La-Lista showing data from last year between January and May.

A Decade Ago

It's worth first taking a brief look at the past. In 2011, Excelsior wrote:

Violence is on the rise in Zacatecas for control of routes to Jalisco and the center of the country. According to federal government sources, Los Zetas - which has control over 80 percent of Zacatecas territory - intend to take over the routes in the south of the state bordering Jalisco and Aguascalientes, in order to take over the route to the center of the country and have control to carry out their illicit activities.

The Z boys, being around the height of their power, had eyes on Guadalajara. The problem was that's where a lot of CDS bosses lived with their families. Which might sound weird to some. Why is the Sinaloa leadership living in the capital of Jalisco? Well, two reasons: they had more or less been kicked out or driven to seclusion in the mountains of Sinaloa, El Mayo still hasn't come down. But Jalisco also didn't have a single big group, more an assortment of independent and associated groups.

That all started to change when the Army killed Ignacio Coronel Villarreal in July 2010. This created the inevitable power vacuum. Early Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) was part of the effort to fend off Zeta incursion into Guadalajara. Which in time gave them a dominate presence in Guadalajara helping them expand into what they are today. For those unaware, Guadalajara is the third largest city in Mexico. Any group calling it their home base is going to be worth something. The DEA wrote in a 2008 cable about four factors that make Guadalajara beneficial: geography, availability of materials, adequate infrastructure, and brainpower. Since CJNG established itself in Guadalajara, they have been pushing into Zacatecas as seen in the map above from a decade ago.

Difficulties with Zacatecas

We thought making the Zacatecas map would be more straightforward than Michoacán. The latter has more groups and more drama. But we found Zacatecas to be more difficult to unravel. Two challenges are that there is less information available and the influence bordering states have. Zacatecas is not unique in its lack of information. More Michoacán is unique with the amount of information available. Often at the very least in Zacatecas, incidents are reported in the local press. But the lack of imagery in a lot of cases makes it difficult to connect incidents positively to a particular group.

Luis Cresencio Sandoval, head of SEDENA presented the map seen above in 2020 detailing the importance of the state to OCGs. It makes clear how Zacatecas connects everything together. He's quoted in a Milenio article saying:

"It is the route of drugs and weapons. Zacatecas is a communications hub, they can go to Tampico, Monterrey, Guadalajara, the La Laguna region, the Pacific part, connect to Guanajuato, Jalisco"

It's unsurprising that areas of Zacatecas CJNG maintain presence in are most easily accessed from Jalisco. Likewise, CDS has long held presence in the states above Zacatecas, they access through Durango.

Bordering eight states truly makes Zacatecas stuck in the middle. The state is more than accessible. It would be impossible to police entry. The military already runs checkpoints in various places. But OCGs can maneuver around these or pay their way through. Given the method in which I created our map, there isn't an easy way to add accurate roads and highways. But I have created other maps with a different method that have accurate roads and highways.

There are three main highways that CJNG uses to enter Zacatecas from Jalisco. CDS with the same, two highways from Durango and one from Coahuila. But they also avoid highways sometimes to maneuver around checkpoints and the military. The last map above is highways and main roadways. I wanted to see what all the roads looked like. The maps I made below show all road data that OpenStreetMap has available on Zacatecas.

Some of these border regions are far away from the state capital. Municipal cops aren't chasing them into any state next door. Mountains cover the western part of the state, making it difficult to patrol. Often in remote areas, OCGs are at an advantage from having better familiarity with local terrain. By sitting up in the mountains miles away, OCGs will spot authorities before they spot them. This can put authorities at a significant disadvantage during patrols. Because of this, they don't wander far off the beaten path likely unless specific intelligence reports things to inspect. So if any confrontation happens during patrols, OCGs get away without sweat on back roads. Sometimes they also flee in off-road vehicles giving them even more ability to evade. Authorities are unlikely to pursue much due to how difficult and dangerous the terrain can be to navigate. Without solid awareness, they might unknowingly venture into a place of disadvantage that turns fatal.

Current Primary Areas of Conflict

The Capital

In most states that OCGs take an interest in, the capital becomes an area of dispute. But given size and density, it is the most difficult area to maintain presence. In Zacatecas, both groups dispute the capital, but hardly does much go on, nor is it given much focus at the moment. There is more focus on municipalities bordering the capital in the east. These are all more or less involved in the dispute for the capital. Which is why it is not shown as a separate primary area. Here is where we see CDN enter. Though there is no definitive proof CDN is working for CDS. They are not working against them. It's challenging to say who has more of a grip on the capital since it's quiet. If it's not CDS, it's a mixture of CDS and CDN. But CJNG is somewhere in there, if not at least on the fringes. They have established presences in the municipalities that border the capital to the west.

OCGs can also maneuver around the capital if need be. So, its importance is obvious given it's the capital, but questionable in the scheme of things. Groups realizing this and that it's a hard place to gain and maintain presence maybe explains their reasoning for not paying it much focus. Another recent community-made organized crime map doesn't even acknowledge the capital. Looking at that map, you would think Fresnillo was the capital.

Southeast Peninsula

The next primary area of conflict is the southeast peninsula. The situations in the bordering states influence this area more than anywhere else in the state. Los Talibanes, historically, a smaller group ran by three brothers maintained presence here. But the inevitable fate of arrest or death has shaken things up. First it was the brothers arrested, then a son of one of them. The family aspect of the group is not prevalent much anymore, which rids the cohesion. Rivals assassinated an important figure in the group a couple of months ago. At this point, there is a lot of uncertainty to what the future holds for them.

Even though these smaller groups have their own name and operate with autonomy from the larger groups. There still is a sort of dependence. Bigger groups can't be everywhere at once. So they need smaller groups sometimes. But smaller groups might not be much without association to bigger groups. Like a franchisee is nothing without the franchiser. I say that because these smaller groups come and go. Their survival is fragile and they don't have the resilience that bigger groups have. So it's not unusual to see Los Talibanes split apart and absorbed by the bigger groups. We will have to continue to watch and see what becomes of them.

The West

The most significant disputes takes place in western areas of the state. At the moment, focused most on the municipalities of Valparaiso and Fresnillo. The two groups meet along the MEX 44 highway that connects the municipal capitals. This trafficking route connects Nayarit with either Coahuila or Tamaulipas via San Luis Potosí, two bordering states. The most direct route from Mexico City to the US border passes through Fresnillo. So this area is undeniably important in the state.

The map below is from September of 2021, which was around the height of when things were really bad last year. It shows communities displaced due to the violence.

The big question in Zacatecas is how far north has CJNG gotten. It would be a significant loss for CDS if CJNG was to gain a dominant presence here. First, it would make it harder for CDS to access the capital and maintain presence there. Second, the areas CDS would have a presence in at that point would be of little value. So, it's unsurprising the groups are focusing efforts currently in this area. The dispute is consequential.

Other recent community made maps show CJNG with a complete presence in these municipalities. We don't agree with that assessment. Due to what is mentioned above, if CDS loses this area, it will be crushing for them in Zacatecas. There is still high levels of visible violence in both areas, especially Fresnillo. Which shows that the dispute is still very much happening. If CJNG gained a dominant presence in these areas, we would expect a drop in violence to an extent. Fresnillo is possibly the hottest spot right now in the state. Most violence is likely generated by CJNG to disrupt the status quo and provoke a response from CDS and authorities. If CJNG was to gain a dominant presence in Fresnillo, there would be less incentive for them to generate visible violence. So, things would ease somewhat. Like what has happened in Jerez, a hot spot last year.

Map Constraints and Misinterpretation

In Zacatecas, the lack of press coverage compared to Michoacan makes it more difficult to get detailed information about certain areas. That it borders so many states required us to consider how they played a role. Given disputes center on highways made us inspect that aspect of the state closer. We learned a lot working on this map of Zacatecas. It was an enjoyable challenge and made us consider all kinds of things. With map making tools becoming more accessible and OSINF more available, anyone with an interest should try making one themselves. While similarities between states exist, each is unique and can teach you something new.

Maps though have constraints. This makes it worth providing context so that others have a better grasp of the conflict. It's easy to look and see such-and-such OCG is here, the others over there. But the crucial element that gets left out is the why. It's not obvious why this group is here and that group is there.

Conflict or battle maps are nothing new and have been around for centuries. But mapping conflict between OCGs puts us in uncharted territory. There is no methodology for mapping organized crime. The inherent level of secrecy OCGs maintain creates gaps in OSINF collection. Not to mention the variety of sources it originates from can make collection difficult. Just because it is from open sources doesn't mean everyone is aware of it. Also, it's worth remembering these maps are only a snapshot in time. Like all maps, they will eventually be out of date and need updating. Last, given the unpredictability of OCGs, these maps can help little to speculate about the future. The capability and intention of OCGs is not always clear. There is some logic to it all. But there is also a lot of emotion. While we assume nation states to be rational, we can't assume criminal actors to be. In addition, arrest or death can unexpectedly change things.

It was the DEA who first started releasing organized crime presence maps. Given they had the relevant public and private information, it makes sense. But they never release much context or explanation along with them. People then misinterpret maps of OCG presence because they misinterpret OCGs and the conflicts between them. Some have pointed to presence maps to explain their fear mongering rhetoric. Pushing narratives that Mexico has completely lost control over the country—an absurd proposition. Mexico is a failed state for its inability to prevent organized crime violence inasmuch as the United States is a failed state for its inability to prevent mass shootings. The leaked emails from SEDENA show they know what is going on and who's involved. Even if it is not all accurate, they have extensive knowledge. Unsuccessful prevention does not stem from a lack of intelligence about the what, where, and who of OCGs. Further, the existence of OCGs is not only from dysfunction in Mexico. OCG profits depend on an American thirst for escape by intoxication. Many, many things contribute to the continuation of OCGs. Maps can help us understand parts of it, but not all. It's worth keeping an open mind and taking the time to gain a deeper understanding.

Crime and security gossip columnist and notorious bullshitter Héctor de Mauleón published what initially seemed like a bombshell on Monday this week. Two secret cables dated 14 and 30 March 2022 and purportedly signed by U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar had leaked, de Mauleón claimed, revealing a convoluted campaign financing conspiracy funded by Cártel del Noreste (CDN).

The gist of the narrative in the cables was that a cartel-linked money man and two Mexican Marines had disappeared after arranging a deal to fund the Morena party's candidates in the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Tamaulipas in June 2022 and Edomex in 2023. A supposed investigation by the DEA and the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control had uncovered an offshore account in the name of a relative of Dr. Américo Villarreal Anaya, the Morena candidate in the Tamaulipas governor's race. Bank statements purporting to show the movement of funds into an account in the British Virgin Islands accompanied the cables in the leak.

According to former U.S. federal law enforcement sources with experience working in Mexico consulted by narco.news, the cables could not be classified as both "CONFIDENTIAL" and "TOP SECRET"—two classifications which are mutually exclusive.

Other details like awkward phrasing also suggest that the cable was not written by a native anglophone. The examples underlined below might be literal translations of common phrases en español.

After the publication of Héctor de Mauleón's column, Governor-elect Américo Villarreal on Tuesday denied the allegations and Ambassador Ken Salazar publicly disavowed the forged documents.

The plan to disseminate phony documents implicating the man who in 9 days will become the governor of Tamaulipas appears to be a pathetic attempt at a smear campaign, and the most plausible culprit behind it, the soon-to-be fugitive Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca.

If you think being publicly contradicted by the U.S. Ambassador would dissuade Héctor or cause him to see the error in his ways, then you apparently do not know Héctor de Mauleón. Rather than affecting contrition after being called out on video by the top U.S. diplomatic official in Mexico, Héctor published a response in his column this morning insisting that the substance of the debunked cables was accurate, revealing himself yet again as a shameless, sniveling charlatan and too small of a man to admit when he was wrong.

For future reference, there's no one dumb enough to risk their security clearance, career and possible jail time by leaking classified documents to a gossipy windbag like Héctor.

On the evening of 9 August 2022, social media was abuzz in the Bajío with reports of mayhem in the style that implies someone important in the underworld has been captured or killed. Videos of cars commandeered and set on fire, gas stations torched and traffic snarled by the sources of the black smoke emanating in the distance quickly became national and international news.

By the next morning, the incinerated hulls of cars, trailer trucks and passenger buses littered the streets and at least 25 convenience stores had been partially or totally destroyed in Jalisco and neighboring Guanajuato.

That no one seemed to know exactly what had triggered the melee only compounded its psychic impact. It was initially rumored that the Mexican Army (SEDENA) had apprehended two name-brand capos in Ixtlahuacán del Rio, Jalisco and the information was relayed up a chain of custody and across the language barrier. Without any official confirmation from the Army, what happened remained a matter of speculation for several days.

Only 24 hours or so later, an incident at a Chihuahuan prison between rival gangs resulted in the deaths of two inmates and precipitated another round of spectacular mayhem, much deadlier this time. Gunmen from the Mexicles gang in Cd. Juárez torched convenience stores and fired on customers at a carryout restaurant. After it was over, the balance was 9 dead and 12 more injured.

Although no relationship between the incidents in Cd. Juárez and the Bajío was apparent, a distressing pattern was now evident to those inclined to see it that way. Competing hypotheses emerged that asserted that the chaos might have been engineered by the 4T to justify AMLO's recently announced plan to integrate the National Guard into SEDENA, or perhaps it was the political opposition trying to undermine AMLO.

With the trauma of the incidents in Chihuahua and Jalisco/Guanajuato still fresh, yet another series of arsons and road blocks in Baja California confirmed what the press and the public were now conditioned to anticipate: Mexico was indeed under siege by the worst terrorism of them all—narco-terrorism.

A chorus of pundits in Mexico and the U.S. lamented a country in crisis, brought to its knees at the complete mercy of violent criminal organizations, reaching an absurd climax with calls to bomb the cartels.

Some of the only sober analysis about the incidents came in a newsletter from the Mexico Violence Project, excerpted below:

It wasn’t “narcoterrorism.” While the blockades and attacks on convenience stores certainly created an atmosphere of terror, discussion of the events using a “narcoterrorism” frame serve to distort more than clarify. The problem is both conceptual and empirical. First, adding the “narco” prefix does not justify emptying “terrorism” of meaning, and it is even unclear how connected to drug trafficking the violence was. In some cases, the events more resemble vandalism or riots, akin to those that have occurred in many other places. Second, previous episodes of widespread blockades using burning vehicles occurred in response to specific events (typically the capture of a leader, or an attempt to disrupt a security operation). If the torched stores and vehicles two weeks ago were less strategic, neither were they a new technique to inflict harm on a “civilian” population. Furthermore, at this point there is no evidence that the chaos was an attempt to negotiate a political objective: the events were disconnected and driven by local dynamics.

That said, both the violence and the terror inflicted on residents of Ciudad Juárez was extreme, and the loss of life was tragic. Whether or not there was a rational motive, these events have a serious and long-lasting psychological impact on the population. In each city the chaos was magnified as videos and messages circulated on social media and became part of the larger archive of trauma. In this sense, the scars will remain long after bullet holes are patched and storefronts repainted.

It was a security failure, but not a Waterloo. Major episodes of violence are often (over)interpreted as evidence that the López Obrador administration’s security strategy is failing. In this case, the deployment of hundreds of soldiers to Tijuana over the past several months did not prevent chaos and fear, and SEDENA’s lack of operational intelligence in Jalisco appears to have contributed to rather senseless violence. The frustration is justified: what is the purpose of military convoys patrolling the streets if not to prevent such events? Yet the bad optics of highly public violence and vandalism make it harder to address structural problems with security policies. For example, even though by its own metrics the administration’s signature security project—the National Guard—is ineffective in detaining criminals, the violence has led to new deployments of military forces. It is those political choices that turn events like these into security defeats.

It's not necessarily a harbinger of the future. This type of violence is not new and hardly costless.  Neither the groups nor the practices involved in the events of August 9 to 12 were new. CJNG blockades using burning vehicles are an established pattern (in Aguillia, Michoacán for example), and the Mexicles have long been known for rather indiscriminate violence. There is thus little reason to see a change in the underlying dynamics of criminal behavior here. Violence is rarely without purpose, and for groups that rely on extortion and petty crime for survival, creating widespread fear that disrupts business—particularly along the border—is not only unwise, it is self-destructive. Indeed, as groups have fragmented and become more reliant on predatory practices, the incentives to turn cities into war zones may have lessened. In some cities where episodes of chaotic public violence have affected civilians, criminal groups have seemed acutely aware of the reputational damage, and took steps to apologize and reassure the population that the events were isolated incidents (see Culiacán, Sinaloa, for example). This suggest that for groups that aspire to long-term survival in urban strongholds, there may be reason to avoid this sort of violence going forward.

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

A sentencing memorandum for Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr. released last week revealed that the former U.S. Marine veteran held a "Top Secret" security clearance required for his military occupational specialty (MOU) and had even been selected for "Special Ops" training at the time of a life-altering personal tragedy. According to the memo, Angel Dominguez's two young daughters were killed in a horrific car accident that precipitated a radical change of character. The tragedy transformed Dominguez from a self-starter with an impeccable background and a promising career ahead of him into a hardened felon dedicated to a life of crime in the shadowy Mexican underworld. This Harvey Dent-style metamorphosis led Dominguez to collude with nearly every major drug trafficking organization in Mexico over the course of an 18-year criminal career, at its peak coordinating multi-ton shipments of South American cocaine through the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and into the U.S. for distribution. Angel Dominguez's criminal trajectory led him to the pinnacle of the drug trade with protection from the highest-ranking law enforcement and intelligence officials in Mexico.

If that sounds more like the plot from Breaking Bad than something that happens in real life, that might be because it is.

The DEA claimed that they stumbled onto systemic corruption among their counterparts in the Mexican Federal Police's Sensitive Investigations Unit (SIU) in 2016 when information shared directly with the head of the unit was subsequently passed along in intercepted text messages to one of the targets of their investigation. The discovery led to the arrests of the head of the SIU and the leader of the trafficking organization the unit chief was assisting: Angel Dominguez.

The SIU program began in Mexico on 30 April 1997 during the President Ernesto Zedillo's administration (1994-2000) shortly before Angel Dominguez's first federal offense that landed him a 30-month sentence for slinging weed in the Southern District of Texas. Mexico's SIU program was known initially by its acronym: 'FEADS' (Fiscalia Especializada para la Atencion de Delitos contra la Salud / Special Attorney General's Office for Crimes Against Health).

In January 2003, a little over two years into Vicente Fox's presidency (2000- 2006), FEADS was administratively dissolved following a series of raids by the Mexican Army on its offices in about a dozen states in January 2003 due to widespread corruption within the unit. After FEADS was disbanded, the SIU program was renamed 'SIEDO' (Subprocuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada / Assistant Attorney General's Officefor Special Investigations on Organized Crime), and high-profile drug investigations continued as before.

SIEDO agents were specially vetted and screened similar to the way the FBI and Department of Defense handle background checks for sensitive government jobs, like Angel Dominguez's MOU in the Marine Corps before he deviated from the straight and narrow.

According to a description of the DEA's SIU program in a 2007 audit by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General:

A major investigative tool employed by DEA foreign offices is the development of investigative units of foreign law enforcement personnel that the DEA has put through a security screening or vetting process. These foreign task forces are commonly referred to as “vetted units.”

Upon entry into a DEA vetted unit, and at periodic intervals, foreign law enforcement applicants have to pass certain security evaluations, such as a background check, a polygraph examination, and a urinalysis test. The vetting process is designed to provide the DEA with a higher level of assurance that the information it shares with its counterparts will not be compromised or disseminated to the wrong party, especially the drug trafficking organizations the DEA is targeting. DEA personnel in foreign offices stated that they needed to maintain safeguards when sharing investigative information, even with vetted units, because of the level of corruption in certain countries.

The use and management of vetted units varies from country to country. The DEA provides financial support for the units’ activities, which are usually managed on a day-to-day basis by a senior foreign police officer, with a DEA Special Agent providing general oversight. These vetted units partner with the DEA but are not DEA enterprises. Vetted units perform functions in support of the DEA such as conducting investigative operations, surveillance, and wiretaps; checking on investigative leads; destroying drug production laboratories; and interdicting drug shipments. Many DEA personnel with whom we spoke considered the vetted units critical to accomplishing the DEA’s foreign mission, increasing the safety of its personnel, and helping to reduce the chance of sensitive information being compromised.

Shortly before the inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), SIEDO switched a word around to become 'SEIDO' on 21 September 2012.

Some senior SEIDO agents like Iván Reyes Arzate, the chief of the unit until the time of his arrest in 2016, were even trained at the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

According to a February 2017 criminal complaint, the DEA claimed they learned that Iván Reyes was leaking information about their investigation to Gerónimo Gamez García, the cousin of infamous drug trafficker Arturo Beltrán Leyva, who was killed in a gun battle with the Mexican Navy in December 2009. At the time, the DEA hailed the demise of Beltrán Leyva as a "catastrophic blow" to the cartels and a "great victory" for Mexico's president, Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).

Geronimo Gamez García allegedly coordinated shipments of cocaine with the drug trafficking organization led by Angel Dominguez.

According to a February 2017 affidavit, a DEA special agent described how Iván Reyes admitted to meeting with Angel Dominguez in person on 1 November 2016 to discuss drug trafficking activities in Tamaulipas, during which Dominguez showed Reyes a photo of Geronimo Gamez García, which the DEA had given to Reyes on 8 September 2016.

In October 2021, Reyes Arzate pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and was sentenced to 10 years in February 2022, which comes out to about 5 years with credit for time served and which he'll likely serve a fraction of with good behavior.

Iván Reyes was appointed to SIEDO in 2008 by his mentor, Genaro García Luna, President Felipe Calderón's (Dec 2006-Dec 2012) Secretary of Public Security (SSP).

Described as the architect of Mexico's war against the drug cartels, García Luna was arrested in Texas in December 2019 for alleged multi-ton cocaine trafficking and money laundering conspiracies spanning almost 19 years through his tenures as the head of Mexico's Federal Investigations Agency (2001-2005) and the Secretary of Public Security (2006-2012), and into his career in the private sector as the CEO of a security consultancy with offices in Miami and Mexico City called GLAC Consulting.

Curiously, the other board members at García Luna's consulting firm were former high-ranking security officials from Spain, Colombia and the U.S., including the former chief of CIA's Directorate of Operations, Jose Rodriguez, who famously ordered the destruction of the CIA's videotaped torture sessions, and the former head of the FBI's Mexico office, Raul Roldan.

Taken bit by bit—an SOF candidate Marine veteran with dual citizenship, language skills and TS/SCI clearance's meteoric rise to the apex of the international drug trade; the systemic corruption of the DEA's vetted Mexican counterparts assisting that drug trafficking organization; a former top official's two decades of drug trafficking and professional relationships with former top CIA, FBI, Colombian and Spanish security and intelligence officials—each of these things could plausibly be ironic coincidences.

Taken together, all of the individual elements of the story make a compelling circumstantial case that one or maybe several Western clandestine services, or a private network closely associated with them, have been trafficking cocaine to the U.S. for at least the last 20 years.

While the Mexican legislature was nationalizing the country's lithium resources, Reuters reported yesterday that Mexico had dissolved their federal sensitive investigations unit (SIU) that previously collaborated with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Known in Mexico by it's acronym, SEIDO (Subprocuraduría Especializada en Investigación de Delincuencia Organizada / Assistant Attorney General's Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime), the unit was the DEA's counterpart within the since-disbanded Mexican Federal Police (PF) that worked major drug trafficking investigations.

What eventually became SEIDO began as FEADS (Fiscalia Especializada para la Atencion de Delitos contra la Salud / Special Attorney General's Office for Crimes Against Health) on 30 April 1997 during the President Ernesto Zedillo's administration (1994-2000). FEADS was a unit within Mexico's Federal Attorney Generals Office (PGR / Procuraduría General de la República) and received training and equipment from the U.S.

During Vicente Fox's presidency (2000-2006), FEADS was administratively dissolved in January 2003 following a series of raids by the Mexican army on its offices in about a dozen states due to widespread corruption within the unit. After FEADS was disbanded, high-profile drug investigations continued under a new unit: SIEDO (Subprocuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada / Assistant Attorney General's Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime).

SIEDO agents were specially vetted and screened with polygraphs, audits of their finances and psychological examinations similar to the way the U.S. government does with security clearances. Some SIEDO agents, like Iván Reyes Arzate, were even trained at the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia. More on Reyes in a minute.

While investigations by SIEDO led to the arrest of number of high-profile narcos over the years as Mexico's, the unit was still plagued with widespread corruption in spite of the additional measures taken to ensure the integrity of its personnel.

During the final months of the Calderón administration (2006-2012), SIEDO officially became SEIDO on 21 September 2012.

The unofficial nail in the coffin for SEIDO began in 2016 and culminated with the indictment of Iván Reyes Arzate in the U.S. on charges for drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption. Reyes was appointed as the head of the SIEDO in 2008 by Secretary of Public Security (SSP) Genaro García Luna, Mexico's top federal law enforcement official at the time.

Reyes was the principal intermediary for sharing information between DEA and SEIDO. According to a February 2017 criminal complaint, the DEA claims they discovered that Reyes Arzate was leaking information about their investigation to Gerónimo Gamez García, the cousin of infamous drug trafficker Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed in a gun battle with the Mexican Navy in December 2009. At the time, the DEA hailed the demise of Beltrán Leyva as a "catastrophic blow" to the cartels and a "great victory" for President Felipe Calderón.

U.S. investigators claim they learned that a mole within SEIDO was passing the DEA's information to the trafficking network headed by Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr., a U.S. Marine combat veteran who worked with nearly every major drug trafficking organization in Mexico. In September 2016, the DEA determined that Reyes Arzate was the mole when information they shared with him was subsequently passed along to Gerónimo Gamez García, one of the investigation's targets.

Dominguez Ramirez Jr. coordinated drug shipments to Texas and California with the Beltrán Leyva, Sinaloa, Zetas, Gulf and Jalisco New Generation cartels. In November 2021, he pleaded guilty to leading a "vast drug smuggling and money laundering empire".

With stable supplies of cocaine and heroin and an explosion of methamphetamine and fentanyl in the U.S. thanks in part to the folks at SEIDO, the U.S. finally got their man with the third and final arrest of Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán in January 2016. While the arrest, extradition and trial of "El Chapo" failed to reduce the violence in Mexico, or the availability, purity, potency, low prices, or social harms of illicit drugs on the American public, the downfall of "Chapo" was the beginning of the end for a whole cohort of current and former officials, the Federal Police (dissolved and absorbed into the Mexico's National Guard in June 2019), SEIDO (disbanded in April 2021) and even the Merida Initiative (pronounced "dead" in July 2021).

After being blindsided by the arrest of former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos at the Los Angeles airport in October 2020 on drug trafficking charges, the diplomatic spat that followed chilled binational relations. Mexico's legislature rescinded diplomatic immunity for U.S. agents in Mexican territory and mandated reports for any interaction between U.S. and Mexican officials in December 2020.

The American press's framing of Mexico's predictable reaction was as paternalistic as you might expect and almost identical in tone as the story in Reuters yesterday.

After the Mexican elections in June 2021, talks between Mexico and the U.S. began with Vice President Kamala Harris's visit and lasted for several months. In October 2021, the U.S. and Mexico announced that diplomatic talks were underway to negotiate a new security cooperation agreement. The discussions aimed to repair frayed relations, replace the Merida Initiative and the baggage associated with it, and improve communication, cooperation and implementation. (See WOLA's evenhanded analysis for more on the specifics.)

Even though everything but the tidbit that the successor of SEIDO was formally disbanded in April 2021 discussed until this point has already been reported and litigated in the press, Reuters made a curious editorial choice by reporting that Mexico disbanded SEIDO yesterday.

It is technically news, but the timing suggests ulterior motives.

In the first 6 months of 2018, the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) special operations forces (UNOPES) were suspected in at least 47 enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Nuevo Laredo, including of an American citizen.

The killings and disappearances were condemned by the United Nations and international human rights advocacy organizations and eventually led to UNOPES being withdrawn from Nuevo Laredo.

The Commander of UNOPES at the time was Admiral Marco Antonio Ortega Siu.

In 2016, UNOPES under the command of Admiral Oretga Siu led the hunt that eventually recaptured El Chapo after his 2015 prison escape. Action-packed footage purportedly of the UNOPES raid that led to arrest of Chapo was disseminated in 2016.

UNOPES also trained an elite special operations unit in Tamaulipas, which has since been implicated in two massacres initially reported as confrontations.

On 9 February 2017, a joint operation between SEMAR and the Nayarit State Attorney General's Office reportedly killed Juan "H2" Patron Sanchez and a number of others supposedly in an aerial assault in Tepic, Nayarit. As is so often the case, the killings were rumored to be caused by a shakeup in the underworld following the extradition of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera on 17 January 2017.

As the first reports about the operation started coming in, video footage of the purported confrontation was shared on social media showing a helicopter gunship firing an M134 minigun supposedly at a group of sicarios either inside or close to the entrance of a house in the Ampliación Lindavista neighborhood in Tepic. According to reporting originally in La Jornada, people in the area described several minutes of shooting before the helicopter gunship opened fire. The "confrontation" was reportedly between the narcos and SEMAR, who claimed they had been unable to enter through the roof of the building because they were not a special operations unit trained in fast-roping from a helicopter.

Two videos from different vantages shared on social media showed a helicopter gunship firing a 7-second burst.

Additional footage captured on security cameras was leaked showing short bursts of aerial fire zipping an empty street, hitting a light colored sedan or close to it, and tagging a stationary car parked on the corner, as well as footage of a group of gunmen firing into the air. Curiously, no bidirectional gunfire is seen in any of the videos and no other gunfire besides the M134 minigun is audible in either of the videos of the helicopter firing the 7-second burst.

The bodies of "H2" (with heavy facial bruising) and 8 others were found in and around the house. In total, 15 people were killed in reported confrontations with the Navy in Tepic and the surrounding area over the course of several days.

According to a reporter from Televisa who toured the scene, the second and third floors of the house showed no signs of being inhabited. Further, the footage that was leaked doesn't exactly show what officials claim happened considering the bodies were in perfect view of the security camera. If footage showing the deaths of the gunmen firing on the helicopter existed, why wasn't it leaked if it showed a justifiable shooting? It's remarkable that in spite of the footage of nearly every sequence of the action narrated in the official version, none of it incontrovertibly showed the confrontation that officials claimed took place.

In August 2021, court proceedings unsealed in the Eastern District of New York and reported by Reforma alleged that UNOPES, commanded at the time by Admiral Ortega Siu, had actually conducted the operation. Facing federal charges for drug trafficking and corruption, disgraced former Nayarit Attorney General Edgar Veytia testified that Juan "H2" Patron Sanchez, who Veytia had agreements with permitting "H2" to conduct his business without interference, had been lured to Veytia's house for a meeting.

According to reporting:

'When they entered the meeting house, H2 was stopped by the marines who took him to the second floor. Veytia stayed on the first floor and listened as the marines interrogated and tortured H2. Veytia heard H2 crying. Captain Tigrillo was the highest-ranking officer present during the torture.

The marines interrogated H2 for 45 minutes or an hour […] He was still alive and Veytia saw him leave the house, bleeding, but walking normally. The marines put H2 in a van and took him to the safe house where his escorts were. Veytia believes that the marines took him there to kill him.'

[…]

The former Attorney General narrated that the marines positioned two trucks and an armored vehicle near the house where the gunmen were, who began to shoot and throw grenades. The Navy then ordered a helicopter gunship to reinforce the operation.

'Veytia was a few meters from the shooting. The marines got H2 out of the truck, gave him a gun and told him to start running. As he was running, H2 yelled 'I'm one of Cienfuegos's people!' before he was killed. Captain Tigrillo witnessed Cienfuegos screaming. Veytia believes that H2 was referring to Salvador Cienfuegos, the Secretary of Defense.'

Today it was reported that the former UNOPES Commander, Admiral Marco Antonio Ortega Siu, is being investigated for his role in the fictional scene staged at the Cocula garbage dump, where officials initially claimed the bodies of the 43 Ayotzinapa students were incinerated by a drug cartel in 2014. That story has since been proven false.

Arresting only a single person will do little to disturb CDN. The government still is unable to develop a long-term security strategy. Instead resorting to sending in more men with guns. But most important, removing the top-dog creates a massive power vacuum. Alliances get shaken up. Protection is taken from some and given to others. This whole dance always results in violence. It's hard for anyone in 2022 to claim ignorance of this. When we have seen it play out over and over.

So, it's never too early to start asking what the next step in the government plan is. It's beyond parody that the President of Mexico would claim victory so soon. Victoria Dittmar for InSightCrime reminds us exactly why.

Mexican and US authorities have once again followed the same recipe they have turned to for decades: arresting or killing the head of a criminal structure without dismantling its foundations.

The CDN serves as clear evidence of how a fragmented group remains strong. It was itself formed by splinter elements of the Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo - CDG), the Zetas and other smaller groups present in Tamaulipas. These organizations may have eventually cracked under internal and external pressure but the deaths or arrests of top leaders did not end their criminal reach. Instead, it led to fragmentation, reconfiguration and the creation of new criminal networks.