| Camargo massacre | |
|---|---|
| Location | Camargo Municipality, Tamaulipas, Mexico |
| Date | 22 January 2021 |
| Target | migrants |
Attack type | mass killing |
| Deaths | 19 |
| Injured | unknown |
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On 22 January 2021, 19 corpses were found at Camargo Municipality, Tamaulipas, Mexico. [1] [2] [3]
The Mexican drug war is an asymmetric low-intensity conflict between drug cartels and the government, and between rival cartels. [1] It began in 2006, is part of the global war on drugs and is concentrated in the country's northern states. In Tamaulipas, this includes massacres in San Fernando in 2010 and 2011 and in Miguel Alemán Municipality in 2019. [1] [2] Violent organized crime groups are very active in the area in which the corpses were found, including clashes between the Noreste and Gulf Cartels. [1]
On 22 January 2021, 19 corpses were found in a truck in Camargo Municipality, which is in the Mexican state Tamaulipas and borders Texas in the United States. [1] [2] The authorities discovered two vehicles which were on fire. [1] In a pickup truck which had 113 bullet impacts, 19 people were found dead, having been shot and burned. [1] [2] They were migrants - 16 Guatemalans, 2 Mexicans and the other of unidentified nationality - who were intending to cross the international border. [1] [2] Five migrants survived. [4]
 | This section needs to be updated.(August 2021) |
In early February 2021, a dozen police officers were arrested in connection to the massacre. [2] [5] [6]
Los Zetas is a Mexican criminal syndicate, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder. While primarily concerned with drug trafficking, the organization also runs profitable sex and gun rackets. Los Zetas also operate through protection rackets, assassinations, extortion, kidnappings and other illegal activities. The organization is based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, directly across the border from Laredo, Texas. The origins of Los Zetas date back to the late 1990s, when commandos of the Mexican Army deserted their ranks and began working as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. In February 2010, Los Zetas broke away and formed their own criminal organization, rivalling the Gulf Cartel.
The Gulf Cartel is a criminal syndicate and drug trafficking organization in Mexico, and perhaps one of the oldest organized crime groups in the country. It is currently based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, directly across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas.
Camargo is a municipality in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the US border, across from Rio Grande City, Texas. It has an official population of 14,933 inhabitants. The municipal seat is Ciudad Camargo, with a population of 7,984. The municipality is connected to Rio Grande City, Texas, via the Rio Grande City-Camargo International Bridge.
San Fernando is a city located in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas; it serves as the seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name. It is about 85 miles (137 km) away from Brownsville, Texas, United States. The municipality has a population of 57,220, while the city itself has a population of 29,665.
The timeline of some of the most relevant events in the Mexican drug war is set out below. Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring for three decades, the Mexican government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence through the 1980s and early 2000s.
Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, commonly referred to by his alias Z-40, is a Mexican former drug lord and leader of the criminal organization known as Los Zetas. Considered a violent, resentful and dangerous criminal, he was one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords until his arrest in July 2013.
Joint Operation Nuevo León-Tamaulipas is an anti-drug joint operation in two Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León by Federal Police and the Mexican Armed Forces. The objective of the joint operation is to eliminate Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel operations in the area. So far, many cartel members have been either killed or arrested. Recently Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have broken relations and started fighting each other.
La Línea is currently the leading faction of the Juárez Cartel originally designed to be one of the cartel's enforcer units set up by a number of former and active-duty policemen, heavily armed and extensively trained in urban warfare. Their corrupt "line" of policemen were set up to protect drug traffickers, but after forming an alliance with Barrio Azteca to fight off the forces of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2008, they established a foothold in Ciudad Juárez as the enforcement wing of the Juárez cartel. La Línea has also been involved in extortions and kidnappings. As of 2021, La Línea has formed an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Ciudad Juárez to fight off influence and incursions from the Sinaloa Cartel.
The 2010 San Fernando massacre, also known as the first massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 72 undocumented immigrants by the Los Zetas drug cartel in the village of El Huizachal in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The 72 killed—58 men and 14 women—were mainly from Central and South America, and they were shot in the back of the head and then piled up together. The bodies were found inside a ranch on 24 August 2010 by the Mexican military after they engaged in an armed confrontation with members of a drug cartel. They received information of the place after one of the three survivors survived a shot to the neck and face, faked his death, and then fled to a military checkpoint to seek help. Investigators later mentioned that the massacre was a result of the immigrants' refusal to work for Los Zetas, or to provide money for their release.
Gente Nueva, also known as Los Chapos, in reference to their drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, is a large group of well-trained and experienced gunmen that function as one of the elite armed wings of the Sinaloa Cartel, created to counter, battle and destroy the Juárez Cartel's influence in the Mexican north-west, as well as to battle and destroy La Línea which is currently the Juárez Cartel's largest remaining cell.
The 2011 San Fernando massacre, also known as the second massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in March 2011. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were later killed and buried in 47 clandestine mass graves. The investigations began immediately after several suitcases and other baggage went unclaimed in Reynosa and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. On 6 April 2011, Mexican authorities exhumed 59 corpses from eight mass graves. By 7 June 2011, after a series of multiple excavations, a total of 193 bodies were exhumed from mass graves in San Fernando.
A narco tank, also called rhino trucks or monstruos, is a type of improvised fighting vehicle used by drug cartels. The vehicles are primarily civilian trucks with improvised vehicle armour, which adds operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities when fighting law enforcement or rivals during drug trafficking activities.
Mario Armando Ramírez Treviño, commonly referred to by his aliases El Pelón and/or X-20, is a Mexican suspected drug lord and former leader of the Gulf Cartel, a drug trafficking organization.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG, is a Mexican criminal syndicate, based in Jalisco and headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes. The cartel has been characterized by extreme violence and public relations campaigns. Though the CJNG is known for diversifying into various criminal rackets, drug trafficking remains its most profitable activity. The cartel has been noted for cannibalizing some victims during the training of new sicarios or members, as well as using drones and rocket-propelled grenades to attack enemies.
The 2012 Nuevo Laredo massacres were a series of mass murder attacks between the allied Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel against Los Zetas in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Laredo, Texas. The drug-violence in Nuevo Laredo began back in 2003, when the city was controlled by the Gulf Cartel. Most media reports that write about the Mexican Drug War, however, point to 2006 as the start of the drug war. That year is a convenient historical marker because that's when Felipe Calderón took office and carried out an aggressive approach against the cartels. But authors like Ioan Grillo and Sylvia Longmire note that Mexico's drug war actually began at the end of Vicente Fox's administration in 2004, when the first major battle took place in Nuevo Laredo between the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas, who at that time worked as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel.
The Cadereyta Jiménez massacre occurred on the Fed 40 on 12–13 May 2012. Mexican officials stated that 49 people were decapitated and mutilated by members of Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a roadside near the city of Cadereyta Jiménez in northern Mexico. The Blog del Narco, a blog that documents events and people of the Mexican Drug War anonymously, reported that the actual (unofficial) death toll may be more than 68 people. The bodies were found in the town of San Juan in the municipality of Cadereyta Jiménez, Nuevo León at about 4 a.m. on a non-toll highway leading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The forty-three men and six women killed had their heads, feet, and hands cut off, making their identification difficult. Those killed also bore signs of torture and were stuffed in plastic bags. The arrested suspects have indicated that the victims were Gulf Cartel members, but the Mexican authorities have not ruled out the possibility that they were U.S.-bound migrants. Four days before this incident, 18 people were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second largest city, Guadalajara.
In 2011 and 2012, during the Mexican drug war, hundreds of people were killed in massacres by rival drug cartels who were fighting for power and territory. These organized-crime syndicates were grappling for control over the drug corridors to the United States, the drug markets in local cities, extortion rackets, and human smuggling. Massacres occurred in the states of Veracruz, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León.
The infighting in the Gulf Cartel refers to a series of confrontations between the Metros and the Rojos, two factions within Gulf Cartel that engaged in a power struggle directly after the death of the drug lord Samuel Flores Borrego in September 2011. The infighting has lasted through 2013, although the Metros have gained the advantage and regained control of the major cities controlled by the cartel when it was essentially one organization.
The infighting in Los Zetas occurred between two factions, one led by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and the other led by Miguel Treviño Morales. The rumors of the split appeared in mid-2012, when public banners and music videos on the web alleged betrayals between the two leaders. After the death of Lazcano it was confirmed that the leaders were not confronting each other, but rather that some men within Morales' faction did not want him as leader.
Aurelio Cano Flores, commonly referred to by his aliases Yankee and/or Yeyo, is an imprisoned Mexican drug trafficker and former high-ranking leader of the Gulf Cartel, a Mexican drug trafficking organization. He is also a former member of the Federal Judicial Police in Tamaulipas.
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