Three days of shootouts led to several dead gunmen and a gory beheading as members of the terrorist organization Cartel Jalisco New Generation continued their push for control of the western state of Michoacan. This escalation in violence comes one day before Mexican government officials talked about how crime has decreased in recent weeks.
On Friday morning, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and her top security officials held a news conference. During the presentation, they displayed a series of statistics claiming that violence had decreased in states like Sinaloa and Guerrero. They also claimed to have made numerous arrests and seized various weapons, causing noticeable decreases in crime.
Hours before the news conference, gunmen from Cartel Jalisco New Generation photographed themselves beheading a rival in the state of Michoacan.
The killing came at the end of three days of constant shootouts as CJNG has been pushing into the town of Apatzingan to take over areas controlled by a small cartel called Knights Templar. The latter cartel is allied with a “self-defense” group run by the narco-terrorist Juan Jose “El Abuelo” Farias.
As Breitbart Texas first reported last year, several smaller cartels from Michoacan, including Los Viagras, the forces of El Fresa, El Boto, and others, joined forces with CJNG to fight off their rivals. Earlier this year, CJNG and its allies announced that they would be making a push for APatzingan and the surrounding communities and try to push out the Knights Templars. Since then, violence has escalated throughout the state.
As Breitbart Texas reported, El Abuelo Farias has a long history of crime in Michoacan and other parts of the country and has been arrested in the past on organized crime and drug trafficking charges. However, in 2018 and other prior cases, Mexican judges ordered his release under suspicious circumstances.
For several years, Michoacan has been ground zero to a fierce turf war as various organizations continue to fight for control of lucrative drug production and drug trafficking routes into Mexico.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Jose Luis Lara from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project contributed to this report.
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