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. BBC News - Mexico gang shootout in Nayarit state kills 28 But it now appears that Sandovals was not the only name Veytia shared with U.S. authorities. There are more than 100,000 guardsmen deployed in the Mexico, plus the military, yet the violence continues apace. Burning vehicles littered the streets as the gunmen faced off against the National Guard, army and police. Mexican marines use helicopter gunship to kill alleged cartel 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. 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. Resuelve los ltimos Crucigramas de Mambrino, Juega a nuestros Sudoku para Expertos y mejora da a da tu nivel, Juega a las nuevas Sopas de letras clsicas y temticas de EL PAS. He says everyone dropped to the floor for cover, and eventually the staff herded all the customers into the kitchen. Several cartels are fighting for the area's lucrative retail drug trade, including the Jalisco cartel and the a gang allied with the Gulf cartel. All In August 2019, just a month before Veytias final sentencing, an indictment was filed in the same Court of the Eastern District of New York accusing Cienfuegos of also collaborating with Nayarits H-2 cartel. According to journalist Laura Snchez Ley, Veytia had turned informant in order to secure a shorter jail sentence. I imagine the situation at wash center at that time. But this fall, the arrest of Mexicos former secretary of defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, dragged this small and unassuming state into the spotlight. Veytias arrest led the Mexican Federal prosecutors office and lawmakers in Nayarit to open a joint investigation into Sandoval in mid-2017. 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. If someone doesnt stop, they open fire. Patrns death comes after increased violence in Nayarit that has seen several killings in the area. 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. 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. WebOn June 6, 2021, a series of confrontations between alleged members of organized crime and members of the National Guard in the Tepic area of Nayarit state left at least three Finally, Mexicos largest mountain range, the Sierra Madre Occidental, completely dominates the western third of the state. 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. [4] Nathaniel Morris, Now the Youngsters are Masters of the Opium Harvest: Opium, Agriculture and Indigenous Identity in the Sierra of Nayarit, NORIA Research, 20 September 2020 [https://www.noria-research.com/the-youngsters-are-masters-of-opium/] In June, two men were shot to death on the beach in Tulum and a third was wounded. 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. Juan Francisco Patrns brother Jess, who also played a leading role in the organization, was arrested six years ago. After the chemical precursors enter the Pacific ports, they are finished into fentanyl pills in labs in Nayarit, Jalisco and Sinaloa to the west of Zacatecas, said Oscar Santiago Quintos, head of the analysis and intelligence department of Mexicos Attorney Generals Office. The cartel is now splintered into small, competing gangs. 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. He bought a bachelors in forensic science in Tepic, married into a local political family, bought a local transport franchise, and made friends with Roberto Sandoval, who appointed him as Director of Roads and Transit when he became Tepics municipal president in 2008. The installed checkpoint stops vehicles at random and performs preventive checks on their occupants at the Boca de Tomates bridge crossing. [4] But violence related to the drug trade only began to surge in Nayarit after President Calderns 2006 declaration of war on the nations cartels. Nayarit: 3 Shootings Between Authorities and Cartel Members Sandoval was a cowboy in other senses too. Thanks for everything. 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. Staff hustled us into hidden rooms behind the kitchens. See state summaries and advisory levels below for information on your specific travel destination. ", Sington tweeted "I've never been so scared, literally shaking," before adding "I'm fine now, barricaded in my hotel room for the night, just trying to decompress.". Ten people have been killed by drug cartel gunmen in a Mexican pool hall. [46] Edgar Valdez Villarreal, the leader of Los Negros cartel enforcement, was arrested on August 30, 2010 outside Mexico City. 2011 was even bloodier, with 456 murders recorded across the state. 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. If this had been a lone shootout in this city of 300,000 people, residents might have written it off as a fluke and moved on. A 2014 photo of Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn being escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture. Karim Torres/AP After the brutal murder of his family ordered by his boss Miguel ngel Flix Gallardo, Palma engaged in a string of vicious crimes to Nayarit put the safety of the state in the hands of organized crime and in the short term, it worked.. Zacatecas, once dominated by the old Zetas cartel, has been the scene of turf battles between a number of cartels. 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. For the first time in years, the drug trade in Nayarit received global media attention. When Sandoval acceded to the state governorship he named Veytia the states assistant attorney general but never appointed anyone as head of the state justice department, leaving Veytia its de facto chief. 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. One month after the June 24 killings, there have been no arrests. For example, after Veytias police officers spoiled the attempt to capture Hctor Beltrn Leyva in Santa Mara del Oro in 2013, the Navy Secretary apparently demanded Veytias arrest, but Roberto Sandoval successfully interceded on his behalf with the Secretary of the Interior. 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. 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. Some 200 armed men had just looted a gas station, according to a witness, and the shooting would continue for hours as an equal number from an opposing group confronted them. 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. From the US Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican. The surge in killings comes as President Felipe Calderon is ramping up efforts to win more public support for the drug war. Its a reminder that residents remain in the line of fire even as the army and National Guard patrol the area. [1] Benjamin Smith, The Rise and Fall of Narcopopulism: Drugs, Politics, and Society in Sinaloa, 19301980, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, ii (2013) Click here to receive our twice-monthly newsletter. [5] Authors own fieldnotes from the Sierra de Nayarit. Over the past two weeks, hundreds of people have been gunned down in Mexico as drug violence continues to escalate. 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 Carlos Joaquin said the commando wore ski masks and arrived by boat at the beach. 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. Dozens of skulls found in Mexico's Nayarit state amid cartel battles "The governor is making sure that none of the bullets hit any of the students," Perez says, by basically sending children on summer vacation three weeks early. WebJuly 25, 2021 VALPARASO, Mexico (AP) When they heard gunfire in the valley, residents locked their doors and cowered inside their homes. Really it is a nice blog, I would like to tell you that you have given me much knowledge about it. The north-central Mexican state holds strategic importance for drugs being shipped to the United States. He used all of the forces at his command to give H-2 complete control of drug trafficking in the state: according to witnesses in Compostela, for example, every week Polica Nayarit officers would escort a truck full of H-2 gunmen into their town to help them to disappear people. Veytia also made sure that any H-2 members who were arrested were always quickly freed. 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. [1] With any case against Cienfuegos now reliant on the information available to the Mexican prosecutors officewhich, just days before Cienfuegos release, issued an arrest warrant for a former governor of Nayarit also accused of cooperation with the H-2 Cartelit would seem that the Narco-Nayarit connection has never been more worthy of serious analysis. That Edgar Veytia was eventually arrested, tried and convicted for his part in this story, and that an arrest warrant has since been issued for Roberto Sandoval, is somewhat heartening. If we dont manage to pacify Mexico, regardless of what has been done, we are not going to be able to historically prove our administration, the president said earlier this month. The story of how that corruption played out in Nayarit brings into focus the interplay between military operations, political maneuvering and drug trafficking. It would seem that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who now moved into Nayarit en masse, had outbid Patrn Snchez and become Veytias new paymasters. Three other foreign tourists were wounded in the shooting at a street-side eatery that has some outdoor tables, right off Tulum's main strip. Camera Crew on US Side of Border Interrupted by Automatic Fire 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. Puerto Vallarta and Nayarit on alert after army kills cartel leader With 239 murders per 100,000 residents, Fresnillo has the highest perception of insecurity in Mexico: more than 96% of its population lives in fear, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography. WebThirteen Mexican police officers and investigators have been killed in an ambush as they travelled through a rural region marking the latest attack on law enforcement by brazen permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com. WebIt was one of the highest-profile political killings in Mexico in recent memory. Eduardo Verdugo/AP Mexico cartel The bullet-ridden bodies of the cartel members were discovered in the north-central state of Zacatecas. They sometimes beat people or tie them up regardless to instill fear. [3] Romain LeCour, Nathaniel Morris, Benjamin T. Smith, The Last Harvest? His sons have reportedly taken over the Sinaloa drug cartel, considered Mexico's most powerful organized crime syndicate. And in nearby Playa del Carmen, police stage a massive raid in October on the beach town's restaurant-lined Quinta Avenida, detaining 26 suspects most apparently for drug sales after a city policewoman was shot to death and locked in the trunk of a car last week. One man and a woman were found wounded at the scene of the attack, along with five children who had not been wounded. "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. hide caption. The other was killed on the beach. to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about There were children," Ramirez says. 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 operations, including kidnappings, torture, jail-breaks, the trafficking of drugs and weapons, and dozens of murders. Some people were locked in the supermarket for more than a hour. In less than eight years, he went from self-proclaimed rags to being one of Nayarits richest men, or, to use a measure more in keeping with his cowboy image, from having two horses, [to] 800 pure-bred Andalusians, which he kept on a luxurious 17-hectare ranch complete with an artificial, palm-tree lined lake. According to Mexicos naval secretariat, Juan Francisco Patrn, also known as H2, was a key figure in the Beltrn Leyva cartels operations in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco. But there is more to the story. Photograph: In relation to the events raised on federal highway 200 near the town of Guayabitos in the municipality of Compostela, members of the Mexican Army, Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), National Guard and Municipal Police, are responding , announced the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection in Nayarit. He used his power to amass enormous landholdings and expand his own personal ranching operations. Cartel del Golfo The Gulf Cartel and Cartel del Noreste known as Los Zetas by many people, Jones told Fox.