By MARK LORENZANA At least 28 people have been violently killed in the northern Mexican coastal state of Sonora since the recent capture of drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, according to a report on Wednesday, July 20, by the Mexican daily newspaper El Universal. The violence has so far been concentrated in the municipalities of Guaymas-Empalme, Cajeme and Caborca. According to
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By MARK LORENZANA From 2020 to date, several factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, identified with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Ovidio “El Ratón” Guzmán — son of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — as well as recently re-arrested Rafael Caro Quintero, have been fighting for territory in Mexico City for distribution and sale of cocaine. This information was
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By MARK LORENZANA Elements of the Citizen Security Secretariat (SSC) of the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office, in coordination with Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat (Sedena), have seized drug shipments, searched homes and even detained leaders of Los Chapitos (Little Chapos), a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, which has been attempting to expand its operations in Mexico City for almost a
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PULSE NEWS MEXICO After two Jesuit priests were murdered in the northern state of Chihuahua on June 20, and numerous other members of the Catholic clergy in Mexico have come forth reporting cases of abuse and extortion by organized criminal groups, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) on Friday, July 8, called on its rival criminal organizations to “not mess
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OPINION By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS The tragic June 20 slayings of two Jesuit priests in the Chihuahua town of Urique has shone the global spotlight on Mexico’s growing crisis of violence and organized crime. But while these appalling murders are a clear example of the blanket impunity with which drug cartels and other organized crime groups operate under the leftist administration
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By MARK LORENZANA Jesuit university rectors in Mexico warned on Thursday, June 23, that the country is experiencing a failed state and a security crisis, and called on citizens to pressure the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to put an end to the violence. During the annual meeting of the Jesuit University System (SUJ) — a network
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XINHUA At least 12 people were killed in a confrontation between police and armed civilians in the town of El Salto, in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, Governor Enrique Alfaro said Thursday, June 23. Four police officers were among the fatal victims, Alfaro said via Twitter. “Municipal and state police shot down eight criminals on Wednesday (June 22) and
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By MARK LORENZANA Pope Francis on Wednesday, June 22, condemned the murders of two Jesuit priests in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, who were gunned down on Monday, June 20, along with a local tour guide inside a church in the municipality of Urique. “So many killings in Mexico,” Francis said at the end of his general audience, attended
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By MARK LORENZANA At least three people were taken at gunpoint from a bar by armed men at dawn on Saturday, June 18, in the municipal seat of Jerez de García Salinas, in Zacatecas, a state in northcentral Mexico. According to local reports, at least six individuals broke into the bar, firing shots, and proceeded to search the tables to
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By MARK LORENZANA Anabel Hernández, a Mexican investigative journalist with Germany’s esteemed state-run news agency Deutsche Welle, said in her weekly column on Friday, June 3, that officials from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) had made an “electoral narco-pact” with members of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel leading up to the June 5 gubernatorial elections.
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