Inside Jalisco Mexican 'young team' cartel primed for new wave of evil and torture

Daily Record

5 days ago

Fledgling cartel numbers reach more than 30k as young people in poverty are lured into a life of crime and murder by the promise of riches.
The Jalisco New Generation might be relative newcomers - but they are not to be found lacking when it comes to the level of violence associated with the more established drugs cartels.
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Horror was sparked, even among battle hardened law enforcement agencies, when two teenage Jalisco recruits told after being arrested how they were forced to torture and then eat their victims.
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The youths aged 16 and 17, arrested in 2017, gave a terrifying account of the group's methods, which included keeping a victim's corpse in a fridge and cutting off and eating pieces of the flesh.
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The strategy, it's claimed, is designed to produce highly dangerous and cold-blooded criminal enforcers who will stop at nothing to further the aims of their drug trafficking masters.
The recruits were said to have given the account 'without any sign of remorse'.
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Known as the CJNG, or Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, this Mexico-based young team was only founded in 2009 but membership is already believed to total in excess of 30,000 with more being recruited every week.
Signalling its arrival, the CJNG dumped the corpses of three men, believed to be members of the rival Zeta syndicate, in a truck abandoned in the popular tourist resort of Cancun.
Announcing itself as the 'Mata Zetas', or Zeta killers, the CJNG said its aims were to fight its rivals in all parts of the country – claiming it was for 'a cleaner Mexico'.
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Despite the barbaric methods, the CJNG sees itself as something of a modern-thinking cartel, and is known for its use of drones, involvement in cybercrime, and forays into public relations campaigns to promote its aims and denounce rivals.
The CJNG has also been known to try to appeal to Mexican citizens with promises to rid crime-infested areas of other violent syndicates such as the once-powerful Knights Templar. Meanwhile, cartel members have also been involved in distributing boxes of goods and food parcels to desperate locals in parts of Jalisco.
During the pandemic, the CJNG handed out toys to children in one part of Mexico where it was engaged in a territorial battle with a rival cartel.
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The CJNG's beginnings can be traced to a split around 15 years ago in the Milenio Cartel, a group known for conducting trafficking and finance work for Mexico's infamous Sinaloa Cartel.
One faction of the split Milenio became known as the Torcidos, or Twisted Ones, and eventually evolved into the CJNG. The group emerged in Mexico's Jalisco state located in the west of the country, bordering the Pacific Ocean and well-known for its major city Guadalajara.
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Reports have estimated the CJNG now operate in excess of 100 drug labs in Mexico producing cocaine and crystal meth worth a street value of around £10billion per year.
From its provincial beginnings, the group now has links to every State in the US and every corner of South America, as well as countries further afield such as Australia and China.
In a sign of its significance, the group was one of a string of cartels officially listed by the US this year as a terrorist organisation.
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However, while other terrorist groups might be guided by ideology, cartels such as CJNG have one goal which drives them – money.
Mexico's economic problems are severe and where there are jobs, they are often highly unstable.
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Many young people struggle for a regular income and into this void step groups such as the CJNG with their immense amounts of cash generated by drug trafficking. Social media is a way in too, with young people known to approach cartel-affiliated pages looking for work.
The CJNG are even known to lure workers via formal offers of seemingly respectable jobs, offering good salaries for recruits initially unaware of the true nature of the work. Only later do applicants realise it is cartel work.
One applicant revealed a chance encounter with a stranger in a bar led to the offer of a possible job as a security guard.
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Only when it was too late did he learn he was, in fact, heading for the mountains above Guadalajara to train as a CJNG hitman. The only way out, he was told, was 'in a body bag'.
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Tooled up with assault rifles and portable missile launchers, cartel members took recruits to a camp where they were tutored in handling weapons – with a warning that a finger must never be near the trigger in the presence of a cartel chief, or you could be considered a threat.
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One unfortunate recruit who fumbled assembling a gun was decapitated and his body mutilated, with parts then eaten by fellow newcomers. The justification was he could panic under pressure and was, therefore, a potential risk in the event of an actual confrontation.
Another shameful episode saw a CJNG hitman, Jaime Tafolla Ortega, known as El Alacran, or The Scorpion, arrested and charged after a federal judge and his wife were shot dead.
Judge Uriel Villegas Ortiz, 43, had been involved in prosecuting cases against organised crime.
He and his wife were executed outside their home in Colima, a state bordering Jalisco, in 2020.
Tragically, that the CJNG are involved in such atrocities does not deter young people from wanting to join. Money talks and this is a cartel which shows no sign of going away.