Drug Cartels Muscle Into Mexican Town Packed With Americans

12/04/19 – Bloomberg

By Andrea Navarro

San Miguel de Allende oozes old Mexico charm. There are the cobblestone streets, the colonial-era buildings and wrought-iron balconies, the neo-Gothic steeples soaring high above the pink-sandstone church anchoring a corner of the main plaza. Travel and Leisure magazine has twice named it the best city in the world, a ratification of how beloved it is with tourists and retirees from the U.S., Canada and beyond.

But lately, San Miguel has been attracting a very different sort of crowd: the drug cartels. And the moment they arrived and began pushing cocaine and imposing their brutal brand of property tax, the murders began.

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Suspects in Mormon Family’s Killing Are Arrested in Mexico

12/03/19 – NY Times

By Kirk Semple

The Mexican authorities on Sunday detained several suspects implicated in the massacre of nine members of a Mormon sect in northern Mexico in early November, according to the office of the nation’s attorney general.

The detentions came during a joint operation by members of the Mexican armed forces and intelligence agents and followed the detention last month of another suspect living in Mexico City, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, providing no further information about the suspects’ identities, their connection to the murders or the circumstances of their arrests.

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How the gunfights in north Mexico that left 23 dead unfolded

12/03/19 – AP News

By Maria Verza

When dozens of pickup trucks crowded with armed men and mounted machine guns roared into Villa Union, residents of the small town near the U.S. border began to realize they were the target of a military-style invasion. What followed were hours-long gunbattles between a cartel force estimated to number 70 to 150 men and state police that left 23 people dead. At least 50 homes and buildings were riddled with bullet holes.

In the aftermath, authorities found about 20 abandoned vehicles, some with machine-gun turrets and welded armoring; the doors of many were professionally printed with the initials of a drug cartel. At least four had .50 caliber mounted machine guns. Residents claimed there were at least twice that many pickups, with some escaping.

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At least 14 killed in bloody gunfight in northern Mexico

12/2/19 – Reuters

By Dave Graham

Ten suspected cartel gunmen and four police were killed during a shootout on Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after U.S. President Donald Trump raised bilateral tensions by saying he would designate the gangs as terrorists.

The government of the northern state of Coahuila said state police clashed at midday with a group of heavily armed gunmen riding in pickup trucks in the small town of Villa Union, about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the border city of Piedras Negras.

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Mexico’s murder rate up, official warns of ‘narcoterrorism’

11/21/19 – AP News

Mexico’s murder rate inched up 2% in the first 10 months of the year, but the latest violence has included much more brazen challenges to authorities.

Federal officials said late Wednesday there have been 29,414 homicides so far in 2019, compared to 28,869 in the same period of 2018.

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Inside the bloody cartel war for Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry

11/20/19 – Los Angeles Times

By Katie Linthicum

The cartel members showed up in this verdant stretch of western Mexico armed with automatic weapons and chainsaws.

Soon they were cutting timber day and night, the crash of falling trees echoing throughout the virgin forest. When locals protested, explaining that the area was protected from logging, they were held at gunpoint and ordered to keep quiet.

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Mexico’s top military brass offer president public loyalty pledge

11/21/19 – Reuters

By Abraham Gonzalez; Anthony Esposito

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador received a pledge of loyalty from top military chiefs on Wednesday, three weeks after a report of a critical speech from an army general raised fears of dissent among the upper echelons of the country’s armed forces.

The military’s public show of support for Lopez Obrador comes amid heightened concern from Latin America’s left about the role that pressure from the armed forces played in the resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales ten days ago.

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