Mexican Border State Pushes False Image of Safety as Cartels Continue to Operate with Impunity

Tamaulipas-Police
Tamaulipas State Guard
Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby
Breitbart News Foundation

Officials in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas have been pushing a false narrative. They try to claim their region is safe, while in reality, terrorist cartels operate with almost complete impunity.

Rather than using their security forces to fight designated terrorist groups like the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas, the Tamaulipas government simply has been announcing police deployments and operations that have yielded no real results.

Additionally, rather than investigating and prosecuting the numerous atrocities carried out by these cartels, government officials use doctored crime statistics to claim that crime is constantly dropping despite cartels being able to freely move convoys of gunmen and even fire at U.S. law enforcement from across the Rio Grande.

Last month, Breitbart Texas reported on how gunmen from the Gulf Cartel had fired across the Rio Grande at U.S. Coast Guard boats that were patrolling the river. The move led the U.S. government to deploy hundreds of troops to the region in an attempt to shut down an area that is a known cartel corridor.

As Breitbart Texas reported, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly claimed that her troops went to the scene of the shooting and found no evidence of an incident having taken place.

The rhetoric of minimizing cartel violence by Sheinbaum is matched by the Tamaulipas government, which is constantly claiming that crime is decreasing.

NGO’s such as the National Citizens Observatory and Common Cause in Mexico paint a very different picture. The groups point to black stats, which are crimes that are unreported or undercounted by the government, that double or triple the reported crimes. Additionally, surveys by Mexico’s own INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography) show that perceptions of public safety in parts of Mexico, such as Tamaulipas, are dismal.

Close to 60 percent of the state’s population feels unsafe. In the border city of Reynosa, that figure is almost 87 percent.

Government officials continue to try to paint Reynosa as a safe region, claiming they have not had the large-scale shootouts common in the past. This is largely due to a pullback from authorities who are not actively targeting and engaging with cartel forces.

Because of this lax enforcement, the region has seen a quieter spread of Gulf Cartel activity, with the criminal organization moving heavily into extortion. Various business leaders in the private sector who have spoken with Breitbart News Foundation revealed that most of the medium and small businesses in the city are not only facing extortion, but also being forced to buy certain supplies like charcoal, meat, and flowers from cartel-approved vendors under the threat of violence.

Earlier this month, gunmen shot and killed Rafael “N,” a bodybuilder who had a strong social media following for lifestyle and health advice. While the murder was largely ignored by larger news outlets, the crime and the lack of arrests afterward show the impunity with which organized crime operates in the region. In less than two weeks, Reynosa has had close to a dozen murders, several armed robberies, and numerous other violent crimes.

Just last week, the Tamaulipas’ capital, Ciudad Victoria, experienced a partial shutdown tied to a large-scale shootout between cartel gunmen and state police forces. The intensity of the shootout highlights the brazenness with which cartels operate in a city that is small and has the most law enforcement presence in the state since it is the seat of power.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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