The reign of the cartels in Mexico have caused incessant violence and created huge regions where the rule of law has ceased to exist. It has also resulted in approximately 100,000 disappearances. Where are all these souls being put?
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the first to acknowledge the problem and formed a national search commission with help from the UN. Workers have been searching through “extermination sites” littered with bone fragments. Cartel members burned bodies and dissolved them in caustic lye mixtures. The fragments are sent to forensic labs attempting to identify victims (CBS News).
The largely unarmed Mexican populace has found themselves in the middle of a shooting war. The Federales and the Mexican Army having it out with the Cartels. Well armed criminals can easily take over small towns with small police forces. When civilians formed vigilante groups to fight back the Army would disarm them. Only recently have they allowed the groups to operate without interference.
The US was involved in gaining intelligence on cartel activities and members. That is until November of 2020. General Salavador Cienfuegos<<, the Mexican Secretary of National Defense was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport. He was the man in charge of the military’s efforts to destroy the drug syndicates. He had been identified by the DEA as “El Padrino,” the leader of the H2 Cartel.
The General was repatriated by then Attorney General William Barr after protest by the Mexican government. DEA and other US agents were stripped of immunity. Cienfuegos was cleared of all charges by his government in January of 2021. The charges were said to be “politically motivated.”
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