Reuters photo
By
Ricardo Swire
Not long ago Mexico’s federal forces were challenged by a novel, aggressive criminal organization. Nueva Plaza Cartel (NPC) members are defectors from the ominous CJNG structure. In 2010 CJNG broke away from the “Milenio Cartel,” a member of the Sinaloa Cartel’s criminal federation. A further March 2017 division resulted from the contract killing of “El Colombiano,” the CJNG’s money-mover in Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast.
After the 2017 organizational fracture two gang “territories” called El Cholo and El Marro were established. El Cholo and conspirator El Marro were masterminds behind the Colombian’s execution. On November 7, 2017 the victim, known as “El Karton” (The Hammer), was shot dead while travelling in his BMW SUV. The NPC remained virtually invisible until CJNG retaliated against the assassination by kidnapping, killing and dissolving three film students’ bodies in acid. The trio were mistakenly identified as NPC members.
Thirty-nine year old “El Cholo” and the NPC’s boss-of-bosses was initially CJNG’s chief of Guanajuato. CARICOM intelligence data indicated the NPC incorporated Colombians among its operational ranks. Such non-nationals functioned as freelance assassins based in Guadalajara, Mexico’s third largest city. In 2015 Guadalajara recorded one hundred and thirteen murders committed with guns.
El Cholo, an ex-ministerial police agent in Jerecuaro city in Guanajuato, was supported by three criminal underbosses who managed western Guadalajara. Modern reports identified NPC executives who live in exclusive Guadalajara areas. NPC representatives control Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Tlajomulco and El Salto southeast of the disputed CJNG town Guadalajara.
In 2015 gun crimes and murders in Tonala, Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Guadalajara and San Pedro Tlaquepaque doubled. At the end of December 2016 Guadalajara recorded one hundred and twenty-three murders. After the August 2017 split between NPC and CJNG there was a sixty-five percent increase, or one hundred and eighty-seven killings. The Attorney General of Mexico’s Office (PGR) does not name the NPC on its list of splinter Cartels that number more than one hundred and spread across Mexico.
On October 18, 2017 at 3:30pm a special squad of internal security agents, guided by fluid intelligence, conducted an enforcement operation in El Terrero community on the lowlands of Jerecuaro, translated as “Place Like Home.” Two gunmen, travelling on a Honda motorcycle, started shooting at the internal security unit. The law enforcers defended and in the gunfight El Cholo was killed but his accomplice escaped.
Ricardo Swire
Ricardo Swire is the Principal Consultant at R-L-H Security Consultants & Business Support Services and writes on a number of important issues.
No Comments Yet!
You can be first to comment this post!