2011–12 in the Mexican drug war

The recent eye for an eye fighting between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel started in the fall in Veracruz, a strategic smuggling state with a giant gulf port.[4] On 20 September 2011, two trucks containing 35 dead bodies were found at an underpass near a shopping mall in Boca del Río, Veracruz.[5] All of the corpses were alleged to be members of Los Zetas,[6] but it was later proven that only six of them had been involved in minor crime incidents, and none of them were involved with organized crime.[7] Some of the victims had their hands tied and showed signs of having been tortured.[8] According to El Universal, at around 17:00 hours an undetermined number of vehicles blocked a major avenue in Boca del Río.[9] Once the traffic stopped, armed men abandoned two trucks in the middle of the highway.[9] They opened the doors of the trucks and pulled out the thirty-five corpses, leaving a written message behind.[9] Other gunmen pointed their weapons at the frightened drivers.[10] The cartel members then fled the scene.[11]

The Blog del Narco reported on 21 September 2011 that the message was supposedly signed by Gente Nueva, an enforcer group that works for Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the top boss of the Sinaloa cartel.[12] Nonetheless, on 27 September 2011, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel released a video claiming they had carried out these attacks against Los Zetas, and that they were planning to take over Veracruz.[13]

On 6 October 2011 in Boca del Río, Veracruz, 36 bodies were found by the Mexican authorities in three different houses.[14] The Mexican Navy first discovered 20 bodies inside a house in a residential neighborhood. While searching at another house they found 11 more bodies.[15] The third and final house contained one body.[15] Four other bodies were confirmed separately by the state government of Veracruz.[16] A day later, Reynaldo Escobar Pérez, the State Justice Attorney General, stepped down and resigned due to the drug-violence.[17] And a day after his resignation, 10 more bodies were found throughout the city of Veracruz.[18] The Jalisco New Generation Cartel was also responsible for 67 killings in Veracruz on 7 October 2011.[19]

On 11 June 2012 in the municipality of Álamo, Veracruz, 14 dismembered bodies were abandoned inside a Nissan truck on a highway near the border with Tamaulipas.[20] Alerted by an anonymous call, the bodies were found on 8:00 p.m. on June 11, but the authorities finished picking them up at around 7:00 a.m. the next day.[21][22] Security measures increased in the area after the gruesome discovery.[23]

As a response for the killings in Veracruz, Los Zetas carried out an incursion to the state of Sinaloa on 23 November 2011 and left 26 bodies — 16 of them burned to death — in several abandoned vehicles in Sinaloa.[24][25] The incident began at early hours of the morning in Culiacán, Sinaloa with the discovery of a vehicle on fire.[26] When the police forces managed to put down the flames, they found inside the vehicle a dozen of bodies burned to death, and with wood remains on top of them. All of the victims were handcuffed.[26] Later on at 07:00 hours, anonymous calls from civilians notified the police that another vehicle in the northern city limits of Culiacán was on fire. The vehicle on fire was a Ford Ranger, and inside were four bodies with bulletproof vests and handcuffed.[26] During the night, 10 more bodies were found throughout several different municipalities.[26]

Again in the state of Sinaloa on 5 June 2012, the bodies of 7 men were dumped on a street in Culiacán inside thirteen plastic bags.[27] Initially, the Mexican authorities believed that the victims were police officers because they were wearing similar clothing to those of a special operations unit.[27] Nonetheless, they concluded that the uniforms were not from any police agency.[27] A message was left behind by the killers, blaming the Mexican authorities of cooperating with the Sinaloa cartel's drug boss, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, nicknamed El Chapo.[28] The banner accused President Felipe Calderón and the state authorities for protecting the Sinaloa Cartel.[29] Claims like this are not new to the city of Culiacán; back in 2010 and 2011, banners were put up claiming the state government and police forces protected the Sinaloa cartel.[29] Nonetheless, none of the previous cases involved leaving dead bodies along with the messages, which suggest that the killers are looking to attract more attention of a possible cartel-government collusion.[29]

As a response for the Sinaloa cartel incursions, Los Zetas carried out a massacre as a response for the killings done by the Matazetas against them in the state of Veracruz.[30][31] On 24 November 2011, three trucks containing 26 bodies were found in an avenue at Guadalajara, Jalisco.[32] All of them were male corpses.[33] At around 7:00 pm, the police station in Guadalajara received numerous anonymous calls from civilians reporting that "several vehicles with more than 10 bodies had been abandoned" in a major avenue.[34] Upon the arrival of the police forces, they found a green Dodge Caravan in the middle lane of the highway, along with a Nissan Caravan just 66 feet (20 meters) away;[34] on the farthest right lane was a white Van.[34] Reports mention that Los Zetas and the Milenio Cartel are responsible for the massacre of these twenty-six alleged Sinaloa Cartel members.[35][36]

As a response for the 2012 Nuevo Laredo massacres, Los Zetas responded with another massacre of its own.[37][38] They left the chopped-up remains of 18 bodies inside a Toyota Sienna and Ford EcoSport near the U.S. retiree communities in Chapala, Jalisco, just south of the city of Guadalajara.[39][40][41] Eighteen heads were found along the dismembered bodies; some had been frozen, others were covered in lime, and the rest were found in an advance state of decomposition.[42] An anonymous call alerted the police to the abandoned vehicles, which were found by the side of a highway early in the morning on 9 May 2012.[43] They were consequently towed to government offices to unload the bodies.[44] The Mexican authorities confirmed that a message was left behind by the killers, presumably from Los Zetas and the Milenio Cartel.[41]

The 2011 San Fernando massacre was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico.[45] 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.[45] The investigations began immediately after several suitcases and baggage were unclaimed in Reynosa and Matamoros, Tamaulipas.[46] On 6 April 2011, the Mexican authorities exhumed 59 corpses from eight mass graves;[47] by 7 June 2011, and after a series of multiple excavations, 193 bodies were exhumed from the mass graves in San Fernando.[48]

Dismembered remains of 14 men were found in several plastic bags inside a Chrysler Voyager in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on 17 April 2012.[49] All of those killed were between the ages of 30 and 35.[50] Mexican officials stated that they found a "message signed by a criminal group," but they did not release the content of the note,[51] nor if those killed were members of Los Zetas or of the Gulf Cartel.[52] CNNMéxico stated that the message left behind by the criminal group said that they were going to "clean up Nuevo Laredo" by killing Zeta members.[53] The Monitor newspaper, however, said that a source outside law enforcement but with direct knowledge of the attacks stated the 14 bodies belonged to members of Los Zetas who had been killed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, now a branch of the Sinaloa Cartel.[54] Following the attacks, the Sinaloa cartel's kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera—better known as El Chapo Guzmán—sent a message to Los Zetas that they will fight for the control of the Nuevo Laredo plaza.[55]

23 bodies—14 of them decapitated and 9 of them hanged from a bridge—were discovered in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in an escalation of brutal violence involving rival drug gangs on the U.S. border.[56] In the first incident, at around 1:00 am on 4 May 2012, nine people were hanged from a bridge on the Mexican Federal Highway 85D with a message left behind by the killers.[57] Horrified motorists encountered the blood-stained bodies of four women and five men hanging off a bridge.[58] The banner left behind reportedly stated that those killed were the perpetrators of the car bomb in the city on 24 April 2012.[56] In addition, the 9 people who were hanged on the bridge were reportedly members of the Gulf Cartel who were killed by Los Zetas for "heating up" their turf.[59] In the second incident, which occurred hours later, 14 decapitated bodies were abandoned inside a vehicle in front of the Customs Agency;[60] the severed heads were left inside several ice coolers in front of the municipal palace.[60] The Mexican police said the second massacre could have been an act of revenge by the Gulf Cartel to Los Zetas for the earlier killings.[61][62] Along with the decapitated bodies was a message allegedly signed by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, where he demanded the municipality mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Benjamín Galván, along with other municipal and state leaders and public safety officials to recognize the Sinaloa cartel's presence in the area and stop insisting he is not in the city.[63]

In the afternoon of 7 June 2012 just outside city hall of Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, 14 mutilated bodies were discovered inside a parked truck.[64] Investigators stated that the bodies were of 11 men and 3 women. The bodies are accompanied by a banner taking credit for the killings.[65] Although unconfirmed, according to the Proceso magazine, the banner was signed by the Sinaloa Cartel and directed to Los Zetas, an organized crime group that currently controls the drug trafficking corridor of Ciudad Mante.[66] Milenio confirmed that the Gulf Cartel had killed the 14 people, allegedly members of Los Zetas, as retaliation for the grenade attacks they had carried out in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, the headquarters of the Gulf cartel.[67] The Blog del Narco uploaded a video on their website from an anonymous cameraman who filmed the truck and the fourteen corpses.[68]

In response to the Gulf cartel attacks, Los Zetas responded in their kind, leaving 14 mutilated bodies inside an abandoned bus on a parking lot of a shopping center in Ciudad Mante.[69] The bodies of ten men and four women, which were reported at around 9 a.m. on 23 June 2012, were left behind along with a banner directed to the Gulf cartel.[69] Its message, however, was not revealed by the Mexican authorities.[70] This gruesome discovery happened a day after several grenade attacks in the capital city of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, where eight people were injured.[71]

Ciudad Mante is a sugar-cane growing community with a population of near 110,000 people, located just 250 miles south from Texas.[72][73]

On 19 February 2012 at a prison in Apodaca, Nuevo León, Mexico,[74] at least 44 people were killed, with another twelve injured.[74] 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 70 people.[75] The fight was between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, two drug cartels that operate in northeastern Mexico.[76] The governor of Nuevo León, Rodrigo Medina, mentioned on 20 February 2012 that 30 inmates escaped from the prison during the riot.[77] Four days later, however, the new figures of the fugitives went down to 29.[78] On 16 March 2012, the Attorney General's Office of Nuevo León confirmed that 37 prisoners had actually escaped on the day of the massacre.[79] One of the fugitives, Óscar Manuel Bernal alias La Araña (The Spider), is considered by the Mexican authorities to be "extremely dangerous," and is believed to be the leader of Los Zetas in the municipality of Monterrey.[80] Some other fugitives were also leaders in the organization.[81]

On 13 May 2012 on the Mexican Federal Highway 40 in the municipality of Cadereyta Jiménez, 49 people were decapitated and mutilated by members of Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a roadside near the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico.[82][83] 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.[84][85] The forty-three men and six women killed had their heads, feet, and hands cut off, making their identification difficult.[82] Those killed also bore signs of torture and were stuffed in plastic bags.[86] Four days before this incident, 18 people were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second largest city, Guadalajara.[87] The discovery seems to echo several other mass murder events where the drug cartels have left large numbers of bodies in public places as warnings to their rivals.[88] The authorities have blamed much of the violence on Los Zetas – a cartel originally set up by ex-commandos that deserted the Mexican Army in the 1990s – and the Sinaloa Cartel, an organization headed by Joaquín Guzmán Loera (a.k.a. El Chapo), Mexico's most-wanted drug lord.[89][90]