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Monday, November 6, 2017

Cartel Enforcer Warns of Escalating Violence in Cd Juarez Plaza Disputes

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Business Insider


By: Christopher Woody Oct 24, 2017
Extra Material Nov 1, 2017 from: Zocalo and Proceso

A Mexican cartel enforcer's prediction about a valuable border territory appears to be coming true.

Ciudad Juarez has seen a persistent increase in deadly violence over the past two years. The violence appears in large related to conflict between organized-crime groups. The state government has attempted to confront criminals and weed out corruption officials, but crime remains high.

In late 2016, a Mexican cartel boss warned that despite a significant decline in violence in Ciudad Juarez after 2012, the struggle for control of drug trafficking there had never ceased. "Absolutely nothing has changed, just the order was that we be more discreet, that we don't shoot at people in the street," said "Jorge", a cell leader for La Linea, a gang linked to the Juarez cartel.

According to "Jorge", Juarez was set to see more violence between factions vying for control of narcotics flowing through and being sold in the city. "The war is because the people of Sinaloa Cartel want to sell crystal meth and we , ie La Linea, aren't going to leave," Jorge said in November. "There are orders to do whatever is needed in order to not permit any of that."

Rafael Caro Quintero has again been identified by the DEA as one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, along with "El Mayo" Zambada , since the extradition to the US of "El Chapo" Guzman Loera. They remain the bosses of cells in Phoenix, Arizona; supervising distribution routes through the US to various cities and have a complete lockdown on control of the entire border region of Sonora.

CJNG's rapid expansion has led to violent confrontations with rival cartels and Mexican Security Forces. CJNG has distribution centers in LA, NY, and Atlanta. In the months since, violence in Ciudad Juarez, which sits just over the border from El Paso, Texas, has remained elevated.



The city had 470 homicides in 2016, according to federal statistics, marking the first annual increase since 2012, when fighting between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels eased. Some experts said 95% of Juarez's homicides in 2016 were related to organized crime.

According to federal data, Juarez had 446 homicides through September, putting it on pace for nearly 600 homicides this year. Federal crime data is suspected of undercounting homicides, and data compiled by local newspaper El Diario recorded 532 homicides through September, which saw 72 homicides alone.

Juarez Mayor Armando Cabada said this summer that the violence was directly related to fragmentation of and fighting between organized-crime groups.

Jorge Arnaldo Nava Lopez, prosecutor for Chihuahua's North Zone, also attributed the increase in homicides to organized crime, tying some to internal fighting among criminal groups — in particular to the elimination of people involved in the sale of crystal meth, which has become a focal point for conflict between criminal groups in the city.

The groups fighting over Juarez's local drug sales are also involved in the competition for control of major trafficking routes into the US.

Juarez "is a key entry point for drugs into the United States," Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, ie, the DEA, told Business Insider. "It's a major artery, and by controlling that Juarez-El Paso corridor, it means that you can maximize your profits," he added, "because you can funnel a hell of a lot more drugs through there."


A man lies dead after being killed by unknown assailants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

La Linea is still active and believed to aligned with the Juarez cartel, which has reemerged as player in the area. La Barrio Azteca gang, another Juarez ally, is believed to be heavily involved in cross-border drug trafficking and local drug sales. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, ie CJNG, both major groups, are also believed to be fighting for control of trafficking in area, adding to the violence.

Criminal groups in Juarez, like elsewhere in Mexico, have fragmented and diversified, branching out into crimes like extortion, kidnapping, human smuggling, and retail drug sales, which is also called "narcomenudeo". While smaller groups are local in scope, they are typically more predatory and add to the violence. "It's like other parts of the country where you have remnants of the Zetas or remnants of the Gulf cartel," Vigil said of Juarez. "You have these little, tiny splinters — as many as 10 - 15  fighting for local drug sales."

The military, which deployed to the city between 2008 and 2012, was sent back to the city this summer. Military officials said the troops would work in coordination with other security bodies in the city, in contrast to previous operations where they operated independently, which led to complaints of abuses.

The violence has not been limited to Ciudad Juarez.

The municipal security chief in the state capital, Chihuahua city, said in late August that killings there had been carried out by hit men who had traveled from Juarez, though he couldn't link them to a specific group.

In September, 15 people were killed and eight wounded in an attack on a drug-rehabilitation center in the capital. The killings are thought to be related to fighting between the Barrio Azteca and Mexicles gangs, which were on opposite sides during the Sinaloa-Juarez war. Barrio Azteca is also suspected of involvement in several deadly shootings at nightclubs in the capital.


Forensic technicians inspect a body after unknown assailants gunned down two persons while leaving a restaurant in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

The state's rugged western sierra connects the northern edge of the Golden Triangle — known for intense marijuana and opium cultivation — to areas along the US border, making the zone valuable to traffickers, who've clashed in the area. Some officials have linked the violence there to fighting in Juarez.

This month, fighting between about 100 heavily armed men belonging to factions of the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels paralyzed a rural area in the state's west, as outgunned police had to wait for backup from state and military personnel.

Amid the uptick in violence, Chihuahua also saw a change in governor. Such political shifts have been blamed for rising violence in much of Mexico, as criminal groups try to adjust to new political leadership.


Chihuahua state Gov. Javier Corral at a news conference about the killing of journalist Miroslava Breach, in Ciudad Juarez, March 27, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Javier Corral of the rightist National Action Party took over for Cesar Duarte of the center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party in October 2016. (Duarte is one of a number of PRI governors who've been accused of corruption.) Between Corral taking office and August this year, there was a 60% increase in homicides in the state, rising to 1,733 from 1,080 over the same period a year before.

Corral has tried to address the rise in violence (which began before he took office), working with the federal government to develop rapid-reaction forces and deploying police to western municipalities to confront organized-crime activity and audit local police forces believed to be compromised by criminal groups. But his response has also been criticized as insufficient.

"I think we had very valuable time lost in the first months of the state and municipal administrations," Gabriel Garcia Cantu, a PAN member and president of the Public Security Commission in the state congress, told El Diario. "There wasn't the coordination that we wanted, I think [that] was the biggest problem that was had in the area of security, by the different political groups."

Corral has pointed to the appointment of his predecessor's public prosecutor as public-security chief in Juarez as a reason for poor coordination, but others blamed his austerity policies for hindering security forces.

"You need to buy helicopters, bulletproof vests, heavy vehicles to traverse the Sierra de Chihuahua, the hiring of more personnel" to confront heavily armed criminal groups, Cantu said.

State officials have said their efforts to root out unfit police has been successful, but some residents and local officials have accused forces sent into their areas of abuses like robbery and extortion, and some have compared Corral's crime strategy to the federal government's "kingpin strategy" that many believe has led to increased violence.

Police in Juarez, like many local police forces in Mexico, have long been accused of corruption or complicity in criminal activity. Residents have said for some time that underlying causes of the city's violence — like poverty, impunity, or weak institutions — persist.

January, 2016 there were approximately 30 murders per month, altho in Sept and Oct saw the highest numbers, 80 per month; the first nine months of 2017 show the average figures to be about 64. The DEA says openly that "CJNG is vying for territory to traffick heroin to the US through Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua. 

"I would also have to contribute a lot of criminality to the fact that the local authorities in Juarez have always been and continue to be enormously corrupt," the DEA's Vigil told Business Insider. "They take sides with the different cartels. They take money from the different cartels, so they do nothing to try to stem the violence that's taking place there ... and my personal opinion is that it's gotten worse than what it was."

20 comments:

  1. Most of this article was mentioned about a year ago with the exemption of RCQ in the mix. That is a recent add on. Juarez has begun it's new offensive since last year but there is no sign of RCQ in Juarez by authorities there as of yet. CJNG might only be using the international crossings also not necessarily sending hitmen and causing deaths. It is to early to tell who will come out on top but La Linea is still very much in control of more than half the city of Juarez.

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    1. 7:15 putting RCQ in the mix further demonized the gramero and maruchanero "JET-SET" of local grug traffickers and gang bangers, most problems are caused by former governor "El Capulina" cesar duarte, and installing his statewide chief of public security as chief of police "in Cd Juarez" is not the wisest of the wise assed moves.
      The incompetence of the government's law enforcement can't be denied, it is the result of government corruption at all levels. Real AutoDefensas would be real cheap and do better job for no pay, also, there is no reason for "fighting for Cd Juarez, shit crosses from the way to Ojinaga to the way to sonora, El pinchi Paso is full of migras, bp, homeland security, pllice, military and more migras.

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    2. Auto defensas might have worked in Juarez during the height of the cartel wars around 2010 through 2012 or so. CDJ and possibly CDS have an arrangement now between their own members not to kill people in view of everyone just like this article states. Extortion is at a ten or more year low also.
      Right now the problem with Juarez is more that one cartel is still trying to oust the current cartel that owns the city. This needs to come to an end. RCQ is an old fuck who may or may not cause this to end.

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    3. 5:49 AutoDefensas ways work, that why the government is so alert and vigilant and kicking them.
      Blaming RCQ is just a ploy, to keep the peepol's attention diverted from what really matters, government incompetence and corruption.

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    4. 2:54 Juarez don't need autodefensas. The violence is not as bad there as some years ago. Narcos are executing among themselves and extortion is low if any at all.

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  2. Fukin CDS is either in alliance with CJNG or just plain stupid for allowing the latter to enter Chihuahua. CDS already has all Sonora and most of Baja to cross drugs into the U.S. but because of its stupid quest for wanting to continue to fight for Chihuas now CJNG is slipping righ under everyones noses and or even causing more deaths than necessary in Juarez.
    Fuck CDS because of this!

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    1. @8:25 Right but CDS is made up of families which might fly under the same flag they have their own networks, for example Sonora is Chapo's land and TJ and Baja is where Mayo moves his weight and with Rafa supposedly now in the picture he might want the Juarez crossing along with los Chapitos. If Cjng in chihuahua it's probably because linea are making an arrangement with them

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    2. CJNG might only move drugs through Juarez not necessarily fights for control of it for there has been no arrests of any hitmen of theirs as of yet. RCQ is theorized to possibly fight for Juarez but people or hitmen linked to him have also not been seen as of yet.
      Either way this fuckin greed is only causing more deaths than necessary. Like they said in old mafia movies- there is plenty of territory for everyone.
      Apparently some people/cartels don't understand this concept.

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  3. TJ was going harder for a whole while seemed to diminish now

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  4. Mike vigil is a cocunut...This dude always acts tough on Univision. At the end of the day, the dude knows even the U.S dont give a crap about the war on Drugs and the S.I.A (spanish acrynom)was thr ones who tortured camarane and his pilot (Acoording to Anabel Hernandez).

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  5. CDS and CJNG are too chicken shit to do their own dirty work. They convince disgruntled local armed groups affiliated with La Linea to switch sides and fight their battles for them. Then CDS and CJNG scrotum surfers come on BB to cheer for their specific group. The positive thing to take from the violence (if there is one) is the Nuevo Juarez sicarios are instructed to keep the fighting away from the public. Where is in Mexico does the narcos look out for the citizens in such a way?

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    1. 10:46 if the neighbor rocks the craddle, it is natural he gets called papá,
      --in Greek it is "Papadopoulos", el papá de los pollitos, he has pled guilty, to special counsel Robert Mueller.

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    2. A manta came out last weekend allegedly from the Juarez denying it has been extorting people in the city of Chihuahua proper. It was said that anyone from the cartel that was caught doing this would be torn apart by La Linea boss.
      If true then Chihuas people have no reason to side with CDS other than to kiss ass to their pupoet masters. CDS is also killing people in Chihuas by poisoning them with this crap they sell aka crystal meth just like it says in this article. Fuckin people should wake up and see that nobody ia going to take care of Chihuahuaneses except Chihuahuenses themselves. Fuckin CJNG could also care less about Chihuas.

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    3. Of course that is things all cartels do they get people to flip or hire locals to fight for them and no the Juarez cartel are the same as the rest they do not look out for the people they just want to fly under the government radar

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  6. I think I got caught up in the nostalgia, but I really believed RCQ's interview, and how he was no longer involved in the life. Now, it looks like that interview was a charade meant to lay the groundwork for a big deception. I think ChamPagne wants to interview RCQ next, jaja.

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    1. RCQ IS A SENIOR CITIZEN NKW.
      he can make all the money he wants and has to pay no taxes! Man, he made it, isn't that cute?

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    2. RCQ don't enjoy a minute of peace because he fears the capture that is looming over him . Who knows , maybe some spooks will catch him and do a real interrogation on him before he is sold to the USA .

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  7. Mexicans are lost.the ones governing the country and the narcos are one and the same .lost cause.

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  8. Cjng pays a cuoata to la linea to cross drugs through el paso.

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  9. CDS could not take Juarez with the help of 10,000 military troops. It cost them control of Sinaloa. Zetas and the developing CDNG moved on them in their home turf. Then CDNJ started to splinter and Chapito with BLO solidified the northern half of the state. CDJ, La Lenia, and Bario and the municipal police are a solid face. It would be a waste of time and would bring way to much heat. CDS cheerleaders need to look at TJ.

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