The day they (soldiers) leave, we know from experience that quickly the criminal groups are going to fight over territory, said Eleuterio Ramos, Valparasos worried mayor. On Monday, Calderon published a 5,000-word defense of the strategy in several newspapers. The government, if it pays attention, can put a stop to everything.. Veytias arrest led the Mexican Federal prosecutors office and lawmakers in Nayarit to open a joint investigation into Sandoval in mid-2017. In recent months, the Jalisco cartel kidnapped several members of an elite state police force, tortured them to obtain names and addresses of fellow officers and began hunting down and killing police at their homes, on their days off, in front of their families. Dramatic videos of the two-hour battle were widely shared online and broadcast on national television, including footage of a naval helicopter gunship raining fluorescent red fire down on a safehouse. The Tulum gunfight also apparently broke out between two groups that operate street-level drug sales in the area, according to prosecutors. He also said one person suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the attack, but authorities could not determine whether that person was a hotel employee or a guest because they were still undergoing medical treatment. On October 15, Cienfuegos was detained in Los Angeles on charges including conspiracy to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in the United States, allegedly working on behalf of the Nayarit-based H-2 Cartel. Cienfuegos denied the charges against him, and after a month of behind-the-scenes wrangling, US attorney general William Barr decided that . Smoke from burning cars rises in Culiacn, Mexico, on Thursday, after an intense gunfight between security forces and gunmen linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel. Several shootings have occurred near schools. The authorities didnt arrive until the next day. Carlos Joaquin said the commando wore ski masks and arrived by boat at the beach. Web(Video) Suspected Members of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) Carried Out a Shooting Attack on a Tourist Police Patrol, Guayabitos, Nayarit, Mexico 04 January The following years were even bloodier, and not just for civilians: numerous police officers were also murdered, including a municipal police chief in the Sierra, and two active members of Nayarits Preventative Police Force and one-time close associates of Edgar Veytia. More troops would be welcome in Zacatecas, though the effectiveness of their patrols is debated. But shootings like this have become common as the Sinaloa cartel fights members of the Beltran-Leyva organization for control of Tepic. He was the very image of a Mexican lawman, with a round, jowly face and thick mustache, a pistol shoved into his belt. The CJNG imposed its control over Tepics local, small-time drug dealers by shooting up any bar or nightclub in which they were rumored to work, killing and injuring scores of innocent civilians in the process. After the brutal murder of his family ordered by his boss Miguel ngel Flix Gallardo, Palma engaged in a string of vicious crimes to According to the national newspaper El Universal, 96 people were killed on Monday alone, the highest daily death toll since Calderon declared war on the cartels in December 2006. For years, attention focused on violence along Mexicos northern border in cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo. With his return to Mexico, though, Cienfuegos fate is now tied far more tightly to that disgraced ex-governor Sandovalcurrently a fugitive and likely still on Mexican soilthan it is to Veytia. Far from a law enforcement hero, however, Edgar Veytia was in fact the very picture of a miscreant. During the two years that attorney general Herrera Valle spent as the security chief, an estimated 1,500 killings were linked to the states new drug war, as well as close to another 1,400 disappearances. hide caption. The state now appears firmly in the hands of the CJNG. He used his power to amass enormous landholdings and expand his own personal ranching operations. The Puerto Morelos shooting comes two weeks after a California travel blogger and a German tourist were killed in a similar shootout in the beach town of Tulum. With a total area of a little under 30,000 km2, Nayarit is roughly the size of Massachusetts, and 23rd out of Mexicos 32 federal entities in terms of size. Since then, H-2 and his men had fought hard against El Chapos group to maintain control of Nayarit and found a vital ally in Veytia, who from 2011 helped them to locate and assassinate their rivals. All of these activities were overseen by his chief ally and enforcer, Edgar Veytia: the same man charged with the local prosecution of the Mexican states war on the drug cartels., State attorney general Veytia was the man who made good on Sandovals promises to halt the killing in Nayarit: the sheriff to the governors cowboy. They stayed only because there wasnt any way to go, nor any place.. WebThe killings in Zacatecas came one day after prosecutors in Mexicos most violent state, Guanajuato, reported seven men were shot to death at a mechanics shop. Soon Veytia expanded into trafficking drugs himself. Last week, the assistant director of the local prison was gunned down -- along with his wife and his bodyguard -- as he dropped his kids off at a school. Nayarits coast is a tropical zone fringed by mangrove swamps, where fishing and commercial agriculture are the lifeblood of the local economy. In 2019, Veytia was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison in a U.S. drug-trafficking case accusing him of using wiretaps and other law enforcement tools to protect the turf of a drug cartel. Republication or distribution of this content is An employee who answered the phone at the hotel said the shooting occurred on the beach near the facility. The difference between a state being a venue for drug production, trafficking, and conflicts between rival cartels, and one in which the cartels have actually taken control of the local authorities (or in which the authorities have in fact become narcos themselves), is an inherently political one. Nor were skirmishes between rival traffickers, and the killing of state officials on the orders of organized crime, unheard of in the state. The public safety department in Zacatecas state said the policemens bodies were found Wednesday morning in the state capital, also known as Zacatecas. Montes de Oca said they fled in a boat after the attack. Zacatecas, once dominated by the old Zetas cartel, has been the scene of turf battles between a number of cartels. The legacy of this political history and the facts of geography together define Nayarits place in the modern Mexican drug trade. From having the second-lowest crime rate in Mexico during the first two months of 2017, Although explicit drug war violence such as inter-cartel warfare and gunfights between soldiers and traffickersdeclined during Veytias time as Nayarits security chief, crime and violence did not in themselves disappear. 06/26/2021. Soon after, the house was surrounded by "a greater force" of heavily armed gunmen and the troops withdrew. A national newspaper reported that on Monday 96 people were assassinated in drug-related violence across the country the highest daily death toll since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006. In Nayarit, he declared, there was no room for organized crime. Homicides fell 75 percent in four years. Public shoot-outs between rival cartel gunmen grew rarer, and by 2016, Nayarit ranked at No 2 on the Mexico Peace Index, and was lauded by President Pea Nieto as an example of PRIista policy success. Drug-related violence is happening all across Mexico. Mike Sington, a guest at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun, wrote in his Twitter account that "Guests are telling me they were playing volleyball on the beach, gunman approached firing gun. The minimum tariff for the release of a loved one abducted by Veytias forces was set at 300,000 pesos (approximately $15,000 USD), although sometimes Veytia also demanded property. If Sinaloans dominated the higher echelons of the Nayarits drug trade, from the 1980s growing numbers of Nayarit natives also began to move from drug production into the more profitable business of trafficking. Alleged drug dealers of the Sinaloa cartel are escorted by policemen in Mexico City following their arrests earlier this year. But a resident from the same area had a different hope for peace: that one cartel wins soon. 7. ET Heavily armed gunmen went on a shooting rampage through the city of Culiacn, the capital of Sinaloa state on Mexico's Pacific coast, battling security Crime "has gone up a little with extortion, with drug sales to foreigners and Mexicans," the prosecutors office said about the raid. Sam Quinones. Several police officers surrendered and were arrested by the marines, but unsurprisingly all were released from a Tepic jail shortly afterwards. By Gerardo 10/28/2010 12:02:00 AM 6 comments. El Chapo has been in jail for more than a year Credit: Getty - Contributor. MEXICO CITY A commando of drug gang gunmen on Thursday stormed ashore at a beach on Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast in front of luxury hotels and executed two drug dealers from a rival gang. Up until May 2019, 130 of the latter had been found buried in 29 mass graves. Nayarits hugely important agricultural sector has made the state a natural stronghold of the PRI, and in particular of PRI strongmen of a particularly brash and populist bent; only two non-PRI governors have ever run the state (once between 1999-2005, while in 2017 the state flipped to current president Lpez Obradors insurgent MORENA party), while the PRIs stranglehold on municipal-level politics has been even more complete. Nathaniel Morris is researcher at University College London and holds a Ph.D. in history from Oxford University. Videos posted to social media show multiple gunmen shooting down major thoroughfares. the victims were just trying to make a living, working in what was available. Days after the June 24 shootout, authorities found two more corpses, raising the death count to 20. Since then, H-2 and his men had fought hard against El Chapos group to maintain control of Nayarit and found a vital ally in Veytia, who from 2011 helped them to locate and assassinate their rivals. Cartel map of Mexico. Despite allegations of corruption and human rights abuses, the army has remained legally privileged, closed to all external scrutiny, and at the very heart of the current Mexican presidents nation-wide public security and policing strategy. Earlier this month, a doctor was killed in neighboring Jerez for not stopping. To order copies of And all this he accomplished, it is alleged, through embezzlement of state funds, extorsion of businesses, overseeing kidnapping for ransom and seizures of land and property, and, of course, close collaboration with drug traffickers. But a few days ago it was the scene of an intense firefight between cartel gunmen and police and the Mexican military. Most of them hail more specifically from the town of Xalisco, just outside the state capital of Tepic, where opium gum from Nayarits mountains was processed into black tar heroin and then sent off north for distribution and sale. The story of the Narco-Nayarit connection therefore illustrates both the deadly consequences of official corruption in the context of the modern Mexican drug war, and also the dangers of assuming that, in the same context, a pax mafiosa can ever be truly peaceful.. Murders occur daily in Fresnillo, a city that mixes the local offices of major mining companies with farmers working the bean fields. Nayarit put the safety of the state in the hands of organized crime and in the short term, it worked.. Through the project Touring the Southeast. "People were yelling, 'They're shooting! She continues working here, but recently moved her belongings to Fresnillo where her daughter and mother live in case she has to quickly leave one day for good. Known to many in Nayarit as El Diablo or La Bestia, Veytia was described by witnesses to his abuses as the military arm of Sandovals governorship, using the Polica Nayaritthe black-uniformed, balaclava-clad paramilitary police he set up as the states main anti-cartel forceas his own personal army. Among other things, the cartels are battling to control the most lucrative drug: fentanyl. His book Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans: Indigenous Communities and the Revolutionary State in Mexico's Gran Nayar, 1910-1940 was published in 2020. Nayarit rarely makes the headlines in Mexico, far less in the rest of the world. But there is more to the story. Accounts on social networks by witnesses said Patrn offered resistance when he realized he was surrounded and troops called in an Apache helicopter. The shootings were the latest chapter in drug gang violence that has sullied the reputation of Mexico's Caribbean coast as a once-tranquil oasis. But there is more to the story. Everyone ran from beach and swimming pools. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); All Rights Reserved The Yucatan Times 2020, Merida number one in the preference for Easter vacations, US Ambassador Ken Salazar says the USMCA achieved Teslas investment in Mexico, Lpez Obrador accuses opponents of exaggerating minister Yasmn Esquivels case, German circus replaces wild animals with holograms, Maya indigenous tourist guide speaks 4 languages fluidly, Battle for water in Yucatan: there are big challenges to ensure the supply, Rhythmic gymnastics team will compete in Yucatan Cup, Worlds second-largest blue hole found off the Yucatan Peninsula shores, Cine Mvil ToTo: dates and locations in Yucatn. Semipresencial en Aguascalientes, Maestra a distancia en Actividad Fsica y Salud, Maestra a distancia en Energas Renovables, Descubre un completo Directorio de Centros de Formacin, Mejore su italiano con solo 15 minutos al da. Gulf Cartel Based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, it started in 1920. Disfruta de nuestras lecciones personalizadas, breves y divertidas. " he says. Instead, they changed form, as murders, disappearances, abduction, extorsion and land thefts were carried out, may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged, https://www.noria-research.com/the-youngsters-are-masters-of-opium/. Armed kids shine light on Mexico's drug cartel violence 06:40. "About 15 people arrived on the beach to assassinate two men who had showed up saying they were the new dealers in the area," the head prosecutor of Quintana Roo state, Oscar Montes de Oca, told the Radio Formula station. The , While it is too early to know the full story, according to court documents Cienfuegos advised Patrn Snchez about US investigations into his activities; as alerted him to the presence of informants within his organization (which led Patrn Snchez to order at least one murder); and made sure his subordinates in the Mexican security forces refrained from interfering in the H-2 cartels, However mutually beneficial the relationships had been, in 2017 the alliance between Patrn Snchez, Veytia, Sandoval and Cienfuegos fell apart in truly spectacular fashion. Now Zacatecans, including in the state capital of the same name, have awoken on several occasions to corpses dangling from overpasses. "It's worthwhile in order to build a free and safe country." Disfrute de nuestras lecciones personalizadas, breves y divertidas. He grew up a dual citizen in San Diego, California, The Beltrn Leyva organization were Sinaloans who had once controlled trafficking in Nayarit and several other areas of western Mexico as part of the wider Sinaloa cartel, until a violent break with El Chapo Guzmn and his allies in 2008the same year that Sandoval and Veytia assumed positions in Tepics municipal government. MEXICO CITY (AP) Authorities in northern Mexico said Wednesday they found the bodies of two abducted police officers hanging from an overpass, and the bodies of seven people shot to death in a neighboring city. Sandoval was a cowboy in other senses too. To order Indeed, it would appear that their collective successes were sufficient to attract the attention of Mexicos Secretary of Defense, General Cienfuegos Zepeda, who decided he wanted a share for himself. The next morning, a joint force of marines and Veytias officers killed the Beltrn Leyva organizations second-in-command, Daniel Isaac Silva Grate (codenamed H-9), in an ambush in another part of Tepic. More than halfway through his term and with violence reaching new peaks, Calderon said the drug war won't be easy or quick, but he said it's a war that "we will win. But this fall, the arrest of Mexicos former secretary of defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, dragged this small and unassuming state into the spotlight. Two paramedics carrying a woman in an ambulance from neighboring Jalisco state to a hospital were killed a few days before passing through Valparaso. But it now appears that Sandovals was not the only name Veytia shared with U.S. authorities. In October 2013, Veytia even provided security at a wedding at Santa Mara del Oro lake, where Juan Francisco Patrn Snchez and Hctor Beltrn Leyva, were entertained by famous norteo singer Remmy Valenzuela. i guess it was less corruption back then i do not know, all i know is it is a shame to see Mexico in this situation, people just dont give a damn about anybody else, and they are leaving a trail of people who wont give a damn about others either..terribly sad. The Fight For Juarez: When Will The Killing End? It is not the first time that tourists have been caught in the crossfire of such battles. Motorists reported on social networks the closure of federal highway 200 in the town of rsula Galvn, where barriers were reported, forcing people to turnaround. Indeed, Nayarit is Mexicos second biggest exporter of mangoes, and primary producer of tobacco. Dramatic videos of the two-hour battle were widely shared online and broadcast on national television, including footage of a naval helicopter gunship raining fluorescent red fire down on a safehouse. Mexican marines run down a street after a gun battle erupted Wednesday in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, Mexico. Last month, a priest was killed in crossfire on the highway. hide caption. The operation was a joint effort between Veytias police forces and the Navy, a surprising partnership given previous events. The difference between a state being a venue for drug production, trafficking, and conflicts between rival cartels, and one in which the cartels have actually taken control of the local authorities (or in which the authorities have in fact become narcos themselves), is an inherently political one. This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. Guests at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun posted videos and photos of tourists hiding or nervously milling in the lobby and hallways of hotels during the incident. Mexicos federal government defends its policy of targeting the root causes of violence poverty, corruption, impunity with social programs while deploying the National Guard and soldiers. If someone doesnt stop, they open fire. The operation was a joint effort between Veytias police forces and the Navy, a surprising partnership given previous events. "It's worth the effort to continue on with this fight," Calderon said. Plenty of families left, some for other Mexican cities to wait for the situation to calm, others to the United States where some 1 million Zacatecans the same number as in Mexico reside. just terrible.cowards! Theres no cellular coverage and just two phone booths, isolation that adds to the uncertainty. Rival cartels often kill another gang's street-level dealers in Mexico to eliminate competition and ensure their drugs are sold first. He was the very image of a Mexican lawman, with a round, jowly face and thick mustache, a pistol shoved into his belt. For Guadalajara-based Sinaloan capos like Ruperto Beltrn Monzn in the 1960s, Miguel ngel Flix Gallardo in the 1980s, and Hctor El Gero Palma in the early 1990s, maintaining control over Nayarit, whose roads connected their native state with their new homes, was therefore doubly important. to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about With the army the bad guys dont move in, said a 74-year-old farmer in San Juan Capistrano, who teared up talking about the situation in his community. Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com, Conversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the, The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star One might also conjecture that Cienfuegos protection extended to Patrn Snchezs political partners in crime, too. A national newspaper reported that on Monday 96 people were assassinated in drug-related violence across the country the highest daily death toll since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006. In a country that has suffered more than a decade of violence at the hands of powerful drug cartels, the situation in Zacatecas, as well as violence-plagued states like Michoacn and Tamaulipas, shows that neither the head-on drug war launched by former President Felipe Caldern in 2006, nor the softer hugs not bullets approach of current President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador have managed to break Mexicos cycle of violence. Mexico's security secretary, Alfonso Durazo, said the fighting began when about 30 National Guard and army troops patrolling the city were fired on from a house occupied by Ovidio Guzmn Lpez, who is wanted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. Its gunmen also brutalized Nayarits peasant drug growers into accepting their authority,[5] and the lower prices for their merchandise that came with it; and, in an apparent case of mistaken identity, murdered the Sierras first Nayari Catholic priest. The cartel is now splintered into small, competing gangs. Rather, it was an organization that not only controlled drug trafficking in Nayarit between 2011 and 2017, but also established close ties with much of the states political elite. [46] Edgar Valdez Villarreal, the leader of Los Negros cartel enforcement, was arrested on August 30, 2010 outside Mexico City. Far from a law enforcement hero, however, Edgar Veytia was in fact the very picture of a miscreant. It would seem that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who now moved into Nayarit, Just five weeks later, however, Veytia miscalculated or was perhaps himself betrayed and on one of his twice-monthly trips to San Diego to visit his family was detained at the US border. After a two-year trial, Judge Carol Amon found him guilty on these charges on 26 September 2019 and sentenced him to 20 years prison. In November, a shootout on the beach of Puerto Morelos left two suspected drug dealers dead. WebIt was one of the highest-profile political killings in Mexico in recent memory. WebPuerto Vallarta and Nayarit on alert after army kills cartel leader April 23, 2022 9447 Sal N El Chopas, leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generacin Cartel (CJNG) and accused of Gov. The brothers accused El Chapo of betrayal, and this triggered a bloody vendetta. Opium Crisis,' Journal of Illicit Economies and Development 1, No.3 (2019) They included two German men and a Dutch woman. Eduardo Verdugo/AP Zacatecas 746 murders in the first half of the year, compared to 1,065 for all of 2020, give it the highest murder rate per 100,000 residents in the country through June, according to the Mexican government. With the death of H2, 107 have now been arrested or killed. Subsequently, in early 2019, the US Treasury Department applied sanctions to Sandoval and his wife and two adult children who have acted or purported to act on his behalf by holding his ill-gotten assets in their names.. If this was the case, we can only imagine what Veytia who thanked Sandoval for his intercession with a gift of Spanish horses worth a million dollars and 300 hectares of recently-seized peasant lands gave to the Secretary of Defense in exchange for his support. Attacks on police have become routine in Mexico as the countrys travails with drug cartels and organised crime drag on and the murder rate remains stubbornly high. 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His sons have reportedly taken over the Sinaloa drug cartel, considered Mexico's most powerful organized crime syndicate. Seems that Sinaloa is battling The Beltran Leyva there and the plaza started to get heated up when they killed EL PEPINO earlier this year. Hector Parra/AP Patrns death comes after increased violence in Nayarit that has seen several killings in the area. presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution In August 2019, just a month before Veytias final sentencing, an indictment was filed in the same Court of the, Cienfuegos surprise detention, and even more unexpected release, is emblematic of the deeply. Newspapers Limited, 8 Spadina Avenue, 10th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 0S8. Durazo said the security forces took control of the house and found Guzmn, who is also known as "El Ratn," inside. The state, then, remains central to the ambitions of some of Mexicos most powerful drug traffickers, a stage where politics and crime continue a decades-long dance. One man and a woman were found wounded at the scene of the attack, along with five children who had not been wounded. Cinco sedes disponibles, Licenciatura Ejecutiva en Derecho. Burning vehicles littered the streets as the gunmen faced off against the National Guard, army and police. Lpez Obradors party just won the governorship in Zacatecas, but it remains to be seen if coordination with federal authorities will improve. Tepic is my hometown and it has become a disaster, I am saddened by what has become of it. Thanks for everything. But their relations with El Chapo cooled off after Alfredo Beltrn Leyva was arrested in January 2008. pic.twitter.com/sLXtMeUTHk. Drug cartels have hung the bodies of victims from overpasses before as a message to rivals or authorities, but seldom do so with members of law enforcement. WebMexico: The candidate for mayor of Morolen is killed. WebMexicos armed forces delivered a spectacular blow on Thursday night against one of the countrys leading drug cartels when an Apache helicopter rained down machine gun fire The killings in Zacatecas came one day after prosecutors in Mexicos most violent state, Guanajuato, reported seven men were shot to death at a mechanics shop. Just five weeks later, however, Veytia miscalculated or was perhaps himself betrayed and on one of his twice-monthly trips to San Diego to visit his family was detained at the US border. Goods to stock store shelves and medical care frequently dont arrive for fear of cartel roadblocks. Similar violence is occurring in other states like Michoacn and Guerrero, where residents caught between competing gangs suffer extortion, abductions and killings. But this fall, the arrest of Mexicos former secretary of defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, dragged this small and unassuming state into the spotlight. Agents of the State Prosecutors Office and the Puerto Vallarta Police installed a checkpoint at the entrance of the city after a violent gun battle broke out on Saturday, March 20th, in Rincn de Guayabitos, Nayarit. The two suspected drug dealers killed Thursday had apparently arrived at the beach in front of the Azul Beach Resort and the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun earlier in the day, claiming it was now their territory.