“Narco-Tanks”: Vehicle of Choice for Patrolling Mexico's Criminal Landscape

 

“Narco-Tanks”: Vehicle of Choice for Patrolling Mexico's Criminal Landscape

Mexican authorities have destroyed almost two dozen so-called "narco-tanks" in another sign of how the country's well-financed and powerful criminal organizations are evolving.

The Attorney General’s Office (Fiscalía General de la República - FGR) crushed a total of 23 armored vehicles allegedly used by organized crime groups, according to a statement released July 24. The demolition took place at an FGR compound in Reynosa, a city disputed by drug gangs in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas.

Photos released by authorities showed heavily modified pick-up trucks fitted with armored plating, bullet-proof glass, and machine gun turrets, among other military-style features. These trucks are commonly referred to as narco-tanks or monstruos (monsters).

The Attorney General's Office did not name the cartels to which the vehicles formerly belonged. But the logos on some bore resemblance to the Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste - CDN), according to online news platform, Borderland Beat. The CDN is violently battling other drug groups in Tamaulipas, as well as other northern and central areas.

The 23 narco-tanks represent just a handful of the 630 armored vehicles confiscated by the National Ministry of Defense (Secretaría de Defensa Nacional - SEDENA) from the start of 2018 to date, Milenio reported. Tamaulipas accounts for more than a third of those seizures; authorities confiscated 231 armored vehicles in the state, with 42 considered narco-tanks.

In a July statement, the Tamaulipas State Attorney’s Office (Fiscalía General de Justicia del Estado de Tamaulipas - FGJ) said it had confiscated and destroyed 257 vehicles belonging to cartels from 2019 to date. Of those, 163 were narco-tanks.

There was no indication if the figures provided by SEDENA and the FGJ overlapped.

Narco-tanks first appeared in Mexico around 2010, with the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas pioneering the development of the modified vehicles. The trucks are typically fitted with full armor protection designed to withstand attacks from other drug groups.

Drug traffickers use clandestine workshops to construct the vehicles; they are built mainly by modifying pick-up trucks and SUVs such as the Ford F-350, the Dodge RAM, and Chevrolet Tahoe. The cartels also shield the automobiles with bullet-proof steel made by Swedish manufacturers, Proceso reported.

InSight Crime Analysis

The sheer number of narco-tanks seized by Mexican authorities not only demonstrates the financial muscle of the country's cartels, it also shows how important these vehicles are to inflicting damage on rival groups.

The use of armed vehicles to patrol drug production was widespread when cartels relied on marijuana farms that were hundreds of acres in size. Still, many major cartels have entered the era of synthetic drugs, and the need for transport on production sites has lessened.

Synthetic drugs such as fentanyl can be produced in the center of major cities, requiring far less space than drugs like marijuana. The cartels also fabricate methamphetamine, which likewise can be produced in urban labs.

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Phone Extortion in Mexico Continuing to Rise Despite Low Success Rate

 A new report claims the success rate of phone extortion is dropping in Mexico, but the fluid nature of this crime makes it difficult to prove.

Between 2013 and 2019, the number of businesses in Mexico receiving such extortion calls increased by nearly 22 percent, but total payouts diminished by over 15 percent, according to a recently published investigation by Mexico Evalúa, one of Mexico's leading public policy think tanks.

SEE ALSO: US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

With a focus on the northern state of Baja California, the report looks at why the frequency of phone extortions has continued to rise at the same time that their success rate has seen a consistent drop.

Amid this context, Baja California ranked as the state with the fourth-highest level of extortion in the country, but with a success rate of just 6 percent.

Extortion attempts by phone often see business owners threatened by criminals, who demand payments of between 500 to 10,000 pesos ($24 to $480), the head of a Tijuana-based business association told El Universal. These schemes often involve revealing sensitive information and intimate details of recent activities to create the illusion that the victims were being followed.

InSight Crime Analysis

One of the longstanding criminal economies in Latin America, phone extortion may be seeing a drop in its effectiveness – a change that could be due to several factors.  

Mexico Evalúa notes the difficulty of accurately measuring the success rates of phone extortion, given the relatively anonymous nature of the crime. Authorities readily acknowledge that the number of victims may be far higher, since reporting this crime remains infrequent. Additionally, the percentage of victims paying up has long been pretty low, as those behind the extortion attempts, often prisoners calling from inside jail, make millions of such phone calls a year. One 2018 study showed that 3.7 million extortion calls had been made from just seven prisons.

The government has taken steps to reduce this type of extortion by simply blocking cell phone signals around Mexican prisons.

The public's awareness of how phone extortion schemes work may also explain the drop in the success rate. Traditionally, calls to victims involved threats of physical harm or kidnapping, but the Mexican government, and others around the region, have carried out prolonged media campaigns to raise awareness regarding extortion threats and how to report them.

Extorters, however, are changing tactics. According to authorities in Baja California, the threat of physical harm to business owners is being replaced by the threat of spreading fake news online about their company – most often by publishing false information about the businesses on a website called Noticias de México until victims give in and pay.

SEE ALSO: Coronavirus Affects Extortion Payments in Mexico and Central America

Authorities have also had some success going after the bank accounts used for these crimes. Mexico’s state Financial Intelligence Unit (Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera - UIF), which traditionally seizes bank accounts used for money laundering and drug trafficking, has made it a priority to track bank accounts used to receive money from extortion victims.

The strategy, though, may have spurred a new extortion scheme, which sees the criminals posing as UIF officials to try and obtain sensitive financial information used to extort victims.

While the success rate of extortion calls may be declining, Mexico's citizens will continue to be plagued by criminal gangs seeking ransom or extortion payments via unregistered cellphone numbers. The number of such calls has climbed rapidly, with nationwide earnings from this crime now estimated at over $500 million a year.

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Rafael Caro Quintero disagrees with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo over business

 

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Cartel Gunmen Take Out Surveillance Cameras in Sinaloa, Mexico

 

Cartel Gunmen Take Out Surveillance Cameras in Sinaloa, Mexico

In Mexico, gunmen have gone on a shooting spree of police surveillance cameras in the city of Culiacán – attacks that not only blind authorities but reinforce cartel control.

The shootings have become such a concern that agents with the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office gathered shotgun casings after the latest incident on October 9, news outlet El Debate reported. That shooting, on a bridge outside the city center, followed a September 28 attack in which armed men shot 84 cameras across the city.

Residents reported hearing gunshots at about 5 a.m. that day. Videos were soon posted on social media of shots being fired, which some mistook for a gunfight. Authorities said the gunmen moved around the city in at least eight vans. They also dropped spike strips in the roads to puncture the tires of police vehicles, according to a report by Revista Espejo.

According to city and state security officials, municipal police possibly aided in the security camera shooting spree. Culiacán Security Secretary Mauricio García Ramírez said at least four elements of the police’s prevention unit are under investigation for possible links to criminal groups, Revista Espejo reported.

Following the September attack, some 150 people employed in businesses around the city center did not show up to work out of fear, El Debate reported.

In early October, only 45 of the city’s 300  surveillance cameras were operating. Since being introduced in 2017, more than 1,000 cameras have been destroyed by criminal groups, according to Revista Espejo.

InSight Crime Analysis

Though there’s continued debate about the effectiveness of camera surveillance in deterring crime, there’s no doubt that taking these cameras out of service helps to intimidate businesses, hamper law enforcement, and assert criminal control over Culiacán’s residents.

The cameras serve as “the eyes of the police,” Security Subsecretary Carlos Alberto Hernández Leyva said in 2019 when a series of shootings left just 400 cameras in operation.

Their destruction hinders patrols and drains the state’s security budget.

Since 2013, the government of Sinaloa has purchased more than 2,600 cameras, investing some 236 million pesos (about $11.5 million) in the police surveillance system, according to Revista Espejo.

SEE ALSO: US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

Despite the number of cameras destroyed, only one person has been arrested in connection with the attacks on the city's surveillance system.

The destruction of Culiacán’s security cameras certainly appears to be systematic. For this reason, it’s most likely the work of the Sinaloa Cartel, or gangs contracted by the criminal group.

Residents of Culiacán are no strangers to these type of power moves by the cartel. In October 2019, the city fell under siege as gunmen forced the release of Ovidio Guzmán López, son of kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.

The ongoing destruction of surveillance cameras in the city serves as a reminder of the group’s omnipresence.

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US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

 

US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

The United States has sanctioned four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel, alleging that they controlled drug operations at a Pacific port that is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.

Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, Jose Jesus Jarquín Jarquín, César Enrique Diaz de León Sauceda and Fernando Zagal Antón are alleged to be members of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generació – CJNG) operating out of the Manzanillo port and surrounding areas in the state of Colima, the US Treasury Department said in an October 6 news release.

Treasury officials say the men “coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo” and maintain contact with cocaine suppliers in Colombia.

The Jarquín Jarquín brothers, as well as Diaz de Leon Sauceda, are allegedly among the most senior members of the CJNG operating out of Manzanillo. They report directly Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, the son-in-law of CJNG boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” according to the Treasury Department.

The CJNG’s “criminal success is partly due to its influence over strategic locations such as Manzanillo,” said Andrea M. Gacki, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“This Pacific coast port serves as a significant gateway for Colombian cocaine and precursor chemicals imported from Asia, including those used to synthesize fentanyl,” she said in the news release.

It’s not just fentanyl products moving through Manzanillo. In early July, 50,000 kilograms of benzyl chloride, used in the production of methamphetamines, were seized at the port.

InSight Crime Analysis

Control of the port of Manzanillo is crucial to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the lucrative synthetic drug trade into the United States and the group’s expansion across Mexico.

A report, "Mexico’s Role in the Deadly Rise of Fentanyl," published in February 2019 by InSight Crime and the Wilson Center found that the port of Manzanillo accounted for the lion’s share of seizures of fentanyl precursor chemicals entering the country.

The CJNG, though, wasn’t always the dominant player in what had once been a sleepy port. In 2016, violence surged around Colima in a three-way battle among the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel and a faction of the Zetas. The CJNG was ultimately able to consolidate its control of Manzanillo by forging alliances with local gangs.

The CJNG was also positioned to deal in fentanyl, given its background in methamphetamine trafficking.

The group’s control of the port has been crucial to its swift rise as one of Mexico’s main fentanyl traffickers into the United States, according to a January 2020 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence report.

Combating smuggling at the Manzanillo port has become a priority of Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who visited Manzanillo himself as a show of commitment.  In January of this year, he gave the Mexican Navy, direct control of the country’s seaports.

The US and China have also worked together to crack down on the supply of fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds. But halting the smuggling of fentanyl and its precursors is not likely to happen any time soon.

The shutdown of the Chinese city of Wuhan – an epicenter of fentanyl manufacturing – amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to the sourcing of fentanyl and its precursors from other countries. Meanwhile, criminal groups like the CJNG ramped up their manufacturing capabilities.

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In the Riviera Maya, Cartel Extortion Schemes Know No Limits

 In the Riviera Maya, Cartel Extortion Schemes Know No Limits

Despite the pandemic’s economic fallout being felt throughout the Riviera Maya, cartels have continued their extortion schemes in Mexico's popular tourist destination, where their operations have grown to target everyone from local vendors to large businesses.

The breadth of cartel extortion schemes in the Riviera Maya was the focus of a report published in late September by Mexico Evalúa, one of Mexico's leading public policy think tanks. The report highlighted a sting in which Quintana Roo state policemen posed as employees and security guards of a business to uncover an extortion ring.

Officials investigated a group that collected derecho/cobro de piso (user rights), one of the 12 forms of extortion recognized by state authorities. The operation resulted in police stopping a van, designed to look like public transportation, carrying the group's members. All were arrested on charges of extortion.

From costumed characters to high-end hotels and restaurants, everyone is a target of this widespread extortion. According to James Tobin, a member of the National Public Security Council, the extortion prices range from around 200 pesos (about $10) a day for individual vendors to anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 pesos ($1,200 to $4,900) for larger businesses.

According to Mexico Evalúa, the primary groups responsible for extortion in the area are the country's two most powerful criminal groups, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG), as well as local group the Pelones. However, common criminals have also been known to pose as cartel members to shake down local businesses.

Additional extortion-related arrests in Cancún and Playa del Carmen underscore this scheme's prevalence throughout the Rivera Maya.

In recent years, the Riviera Maya has seen a rise in the extortion of resorts, along with a variety of other methods of extortion, including one of the world’s largest ATM scams.

InSight Crime Analysis

While the pandemic has slowed the tourism-based economy throughout the Riviera Maya, cartel extortion schemes have not only continued to grow but spread to target nearly all local businesses.

In Quintana Roo, derecho/cobro de piso ranks among the most common extortion methods, according to the state’s Secretary of Public Security, Lucio Hernández.

The state of Quintana Roo had the second highest rate of extortion complaints per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to the Quintana Roo Security and Gender Observatory (Observatorio de Seguridad y Género de Quintana Roo - Osege). In the first semester of this year, cases have been reduced by 62 percent, but 911 calls related to this crime in the same period have increased by 49 percent.

Yet, almost 99 percent of extortion cases go unreported.

The reasons for the lack of reports by victims of extortion are two-fold: a fear of reprisal and a distrust of the authorities. In this context, testimonies collected by these Mexico Evalúa investigations provide significant insight into the victims of these extortion schemes.

They also illustrate how these extortion schemes are being carried out – from threats over the phone to in-person visits to businesses, often involving intimidation or violence toward employees.

However, the prevalence of extortion schemes is not just unique to Quintana Roo, as Mexico Evalúa has also investigated and analyzed extortion case studies in the states of Chihuahua, Michoacán, and Baja California.

Nationally, there were nearly one million cases of extortion recorded in 2020 – with 1,821 out of every 10,000 businesses victimized. It's estimated that extortion costs the Mexican economy an average of 226,000 million pesos ($11.3 million) annually, or approximately 1.25 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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