Mexico

Alejandro “Omar” Treviño-Morales, code-named “Z42,” who took over the Los Zetas Cartel after the arrest of his brother, Miguel Treviño-Morales, was arrested on March 4. He was captured in the municipality of San Pedro Garza Garcia, part of Monterrey and the richest area of Nuevo Leon—traditionally a hangout for narcos from the Juarez Cartel and […]

Mexico has scored another coup in the narco-insurgency. On February 27—in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan—Servando “La Tuta” Gomez was rolled up by Mexican police. “La Tuta,” also known as “El Profe” (The Professor) because of his past as a teacher, was the “spiritual” and operational leader of the Caballeros Templarios, the Knights Templar Cartel. […]

On February 22, 2014, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, was captured in his beachside house in Mazatlan by Mexican Marines. It was the culmination of a 13-year manhunt for the drug lord, and was praised as a major coup. A “big strike,”according to former Mexican President Calderon. El Chapo was the most […]

In an earlier post, I examined some of the cartel diversification (not all of it was new by any means) that would sharply limit attempts to combat the cartels by way of marijuana legalization. Here, we’re going to narrow the focus to a few players and incidents, as an illustration of just how complicated the […]

Several media outlets have recently run articles about the impact the legalization of marijuana has been having on the Mexican cartels. Most (such as those from VICE or DailyKos) have been crowing that the legalization of pot is “crippling” the cartels. But is this a realistic view? Let’s take a look. Marijuana is legal in Alaska, […]

In September, 43 “Normalistas,” students studying to be teachers, in Iguala, Guerrero State, Mexico disappeared. They are now presumed to have been murdered. They were kidnapped by municipal police and handed over to “Guerreros Unidos,” the local organized-crime executioners. The response to these kidnappings and presumed murders has been widespread protests in Mexico City and […]

In February 2013, in the villages of Cheran and Tierra Caliente in Michoacan, two separate self-defense militias began pushing back against the Knights Templar Cartel.  All signs point to the two autodefensas, or communitarios, arising entirely separately from each other, and in fact, they have followed two very different models. Cheran is a majority-indigenous town, […]

No conoces a Mexico. No la conoces como yo. No lo conoces porque eres supuesto Americano. En realidad, ambos somos. Pero tu distingues. Soy el original. Tu eres la copia. Introduction to the Introduction You don’t know Mexico. You know Tex Mex. You know illegal immigrants. You might know Cantinflas. You see Mexico from a […]