Latest news with #cartels
CBS News
8 hours ago
- General
- CBS News
5 police officers dead after being "attacked and ambushed" in Mexico; patrol vehicle set on fire
Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico to help fight cartels Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico Five police officers died Monday after they were ambushed by an armed group in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, local officials said. The attack happened in the town of Frontera Comalapa, where the Chiapas state police officers were on patrol when they were ambushed. "Members of the state police were attacked and ambushed," the governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Ramirez, said on social media. Ramirez identified the slain officers as Guillermo Cortés Morales, Jesús Sánchez Pérez, Joel Martínez Pérez, Brenda Lizbeth Toalá Blanco and Pedro Hernández Hernánde. The local Security Secretariat said it had deployed more than 1,000 officers to "attend to the situation and guarantee security in the area." Five police officers died Monday after they were ambushed by an armed group in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, local officials said. Chiapas State Governor Eduardo Ramirez The agency also shared an image of the slain officers' charred patrol vehicle after it was completely engulfed in flames on a roadway. Later, the agency announced on social media they had arrested a man in connection to the murders. Authorities said the suspect was hiding in the weeds about half a mile from the crime scene, carrying an AK-47 rifle and a backpack with military uniforms. Officials did not immediately give information about other possible suspects. In recent months, Chiapas has been shaken by a bloody turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel — the country's two most powerful criminal organizations. Chiapas has been described by the InSight Crime think tank as "a major smuggling hub of both drugs and migrants." In December, authorities said they recovered more than 30 bodies from pits in Chiapas.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Fire kills 12 people who were reportedly locked up inside drug rehab center in Mexico
Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico to help fight cartels Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico A fire in a drug rehabilitation center in the violence-plagued Mexican state of Guanajuato killed 12 people and injured at least three others, authorities said Sunday. The fire broke out early Sunday in the town of San Jose Iturbe, where the municipal government said it was still investigating what caused the deadly blaze. "We express our solidarity with the families of those who have been killed while they tried to overcome addictions," the municipal government said in a statement, adding that it will help to pay for the funeral expenses of those killed. Experts were gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses to establish "the reasons for the tragic incident," the Guanajuato state prosecutor's office said. Mexican media outlets reported that the victims of the fire had been locked up inside the rehab center. A woman lits candles at the rehabilitation center where 12 people died due to a fire in San Jose Iturbide community, Guanajuato state, Mexico on June 1, 2025. MARIO ARMAS/AFP via Getty Images Mexico's privately run drug rehabilitation centers are often abusive, clandestine, unregulated and underfunded. They have been the targets of similar attacks in the past. The industrial and agricultural state of Guanajuato has for years been the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation cartel and a local gang, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any state in Mexico. Just last month, investigators found 17 bodies during a search for missing persons in an abandoned house in Guanajuato. Days before that, seven people, including children, were gunned down in the same region. Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at rehab facilities in the past. Officials also believe cartels sometimes execute patients who refuse to join their ranks. In April, gunmen shot up a drug rehab clinic in the troubled Sinaloa state, killing at least nine people. In July 2022, six people were shot dead at a drug rehab center near the western Mexican city of Guadalajara. Two years before that, heavily armed men stormed a drug rehab center in the central city of Irapuato and killed 27 people. In 2010, 19 people were killed in an attack on a rehab center in Chihuahua, a city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen other attacks on such facilities occurred in the decade between those massacres. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border
MEXICO CITY — After years of confiscating rising amounts of fentanyl, the opioid that has fueled the most lethal drug epidemic in American history, U.S. officials are confronting a new and puzzling reality at the Mexican border. Fentanyl seizures are plummeting. The phenomenon has received little notice in Washington, where the Trump administration has made fentanyl-trafficking cartels a national-security priority. 'Narcotics of all kinds are pouring across our borders,' said a White House statement in March, announcing stiff tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
5 missing musicians found dead near U.S. border in Mexico; alleged cartel members arrested
Why Trump is pushing military help for Mexico to help fight cartels The bodies of five musicians, members of a Mexican regional music group who had gone missing, were found in the northern city of Reynosa along the Texas border, authorities said on Thursday. The musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo, which played at parties and local dances in the region, had been reported missing since Sunday. Tamaulipas state prosecutors, who had been investigating their disappearance, said the men were kidnapped around 10 p.m. that night while traveling in a SUV on the way to a venue where they were hired to play. Their bodies were found on the fringes of Reynosa. Prosecutors said nine suspects believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has strong presence in the city, have been arrested. Authorities were not immediately able to say why the men were slain, and did not deny reports by local media that the bodies had been burned. The vehicle belonging to Mexican musical group Grupo Fugitivo is seen outside the Specialized Unit for the Investigation of Forced Disappearances, after Mexican authorities confirmed that five members of the band were found dead, in Reynosa, Mexico May 29, 2025. Stringer / REUTERS Relatives had reported receiving ransom demands for the musicians, aged between 20 and 40 years old. The band was hired to put on a concert but arrived to find a vacant lot, according to family members. The genre they played – Mexican regional music, which encapsulates a wide range of styles including corridos and cumbia – has in recent years gained a spotlight as it's entered a sort of international musical renaissance. Young artists sometimes pay homage to leaders of drug cartels, often portrayed as Robin Hood-type figures. It was not immediately clear if the group played such songs or if the artists were simply victims of rampant cartel violence that has eclipsed the city. But other artists have faced death threats by cartels, while others have had their visas stripped by the United States under accusations by the Trump administration that they were glorifying criminal violence. The last time the musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo were heard from was the night they were kidnapped, when they told family members they were on the way to the event. After that, nothing else was heard of them. Their disappearance caused an uproar in Tamaulipas, a state long eclipsed by cartel warfare. Their families reported the disappearances, called on the public for support and people took to the streets in protest. On Wednesday, protesters blocked the international bridge connecting Reynosa and Pharr, Texas, later going to a local cathedral to pray and make offerings to the disappeared. Mexican Army members stand guard at the scene where, according to Mexican authorities, the members of the musical group Grupo Fugitivo were found dead, in Reynosa, Mexico May 29, 2025. Stringer / REUTERS Reynosa is a Mexican border city adjacent to the United States and has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft. Musicians sometimes get caught in cartel turf wars Mexican musicians have previously been targeted by criminal groups that pay them to compose and perform songs that glorify the exploits of their leaders. Such performers often live in close proximity to their drug lord patrons, and can at times get caught up in gang turf battles. "Narcocorridos" are a controversial sub-genre of music in Mexico, and the songs have caught the attention of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who recently launched a music contest "for peace and against addictions," seeking to counter the popularity of the music among young people in Mexico and the United States. Several regions in the country have banned "narcocorridos," sparking a recent riot during a concert after a singer refused to perform some of his most popular songs. In April, the U.S. State Department revoked the visas of members of a Mexican band after they projected the face of a drug cartel boss onto a large screen during a performance in the western state of Jalisco. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was U.S. ambassador to Mexico during the first Trump administration, said on social media that the work and tourism visas of members of Los Alegres del Barranco were revoked. The controversy broke out in late March when the face of Nemesio Rubén "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes layered over flames was projected behind the band, originally hailing from Sinaloa, during the concert. Oseguera is the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has been connected to a ranch authorities say was used to train cartel recruits and possibly dispose of bodies in Jalisco, where searchers found human bone fragments, heaps of clothing and shoes. The U.S. government has offered a $15 million reward for information leading to Oseguera's capture. In November, his son-in-law was arrested in California after U.S. officials say he faked his own death to "live a life of luxury" north of the border. The Jalisco cartel is among other criminal groups in Mexico that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration. While the image was met by applause during the concert, Jalisco prosecutors quickly announced they were summoning the band to testify in an investigation into whether they were promoting violence, a crime which could result in a penalty of up to six months in prison In 2018, armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group "Los Norteños de Río Bravo," whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas. In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia were executed by alleged cartel members in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly because of links to a rival gang. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
‘We are living in a war': Mexicans brace for violence ahead of judicial elections
Gadi Mokotov makes cars bulletproof. Living in Mexico City, he sees all sorts of demands for armored vehicles – from military trucks and secretive government vehicles to the Cadillacs of the capital's high rollers and even 10-year-old Hondas. As criminal violence ticks up across the country, the lines for his services have grown longer – and more of his customized cars are coming back for repairs with bullet pocks and shattered windows. 'We are living in a war,' he told CNN. 'A war with the cartels.' Despite the efforts of successive governments to combat Mexico's deeply entrenched cartels, tens of thousands of people are killed each year in crime-related deaths, according to government figures. Recently, Mokotov says one of his private clients in Guadalajara brought their Ford pick-up truck back to his shop with over 100 bullet marks, breaking down into tears, thankful to have survived an ambush. In years past, Mexico City was seen as a relatively peaceful oasis in the country. But even here, violence is spiking, with murders up over 150% compared to the same period last year, according to reporting by El Pais. Some attacks appear to be designed to send a message to Mexico's political class. Last week, two aides to the mayor of Mexico City were gunned down on their way to work, in what authorities concluded was a 'direct and highly planned attack.' A few days earlier, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz had been shot and killed alongside three other people during a festive campaign march. As controversial national judicial elections approach on Sunday, some Mexicans across the country are preparing for the worst. According to Mexican think tank Laboratorio Electoral, last year's legislative elections were the most violent on record, with over 40 candidates assassinated and hundreds more violent incidents, including attacks and kidnappings, largely attributed to cartels aiming to sway the vote and intimidate candidates. While the run-up to this year's judicial vote has not been quite as bloody, a climate of fear persists. Across the country, at least four candidates have already abandoned their campaigns after receiving threats, per the international conflict research organization Crisis Group, and several judges have refused to campaign at all in areas controlled by cartels. Since 2012, at least 17 judges and six clerks have been killed in connection to their work, the group notes. One of the last acts of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024 was to pass a constitutional reform mandating that all judges in the country be elected by direct vote – a radical shift from the system of internal appointments that had populated most of Mexico's judiciary until then. The vote – seen by supporters as an effort to guarantee judges' autonomy and impartiality – has been embraced by Lopez Obrador's successor and protege, President Claudia Sheinbaum. On Sunday, June 1, thousands of candidates will be competing for the 881 seats up for grabs. César Gutiérrez Priego, a criminal lawyer in Mexico City running for a seat on the country's Supreme Court, told CNN he's been campaigning this spring with a bulletproof vest under his suit. 'It doesn't smell very good. But it's something that I needed to do because I have to protect myself. I have two kids and I don't want to just be another number,' he says of the vest, which he's been wearing for two months on the campaign trail. Priego is no stranger to the potential for violence and corruption in Mexican politics – he decided to study law when he was in his 20s, after seeing his high-ranking military father, Mexico's then-drug czar, imprisoned on what he says were false charges. Across the country, trust in the justice system has been broken over and over. Judges are widely perceived as among the most corrupt officials in the country, and many high-profile cases have never been concluded. In 2022, just 16 percent of criminal investigations overall were resolved, according to Human Rights Watch. Critics argue that addressing these issues requires far more profound change – including repressing organized crime and addressing corruption at the prosecutorial level and in government – than this week's judicial vote can address. Both the Biden and Trump administrations in the US have warned against the judicial vote, voicing concern that making judges run for election could further expose them to political interests and to potential corruption or intimidation by organized crime groups. Still, Priego says he's willing to try the new system – and to face the personal risk to his own life – for a shot at a seat on the highest bench in the country. 'In Mexico, we have a big trouble here in our country. And what is that trouble? It's that criminals take control of some places, some institutions, and one of those institutions is the justice system. And I believe if we change that, we can make the change that really helps people, because if you make the criminals go to jail, you can end impunity,' Priego tells CNN. Ending impunity, everyone agrees, is long overdue in the country – though not everyone agrees on how to get there. In his Mexico City garage, Mokotov sees daily evidence of the crisis, including a fast-growing number of first-time clients asking for his services: women looking to add bulletproof armor to humble commuter cars. It's a request that leaves even him a bit disturbed, he says. 'It's not nice to see moms coming here saying 'I need to protect my kids to go to school.' They're afraid for the lives of their kids.'
