Two days ago an investigative NPR report proposed that the war on drugs favors the Siñaloa drug gang, headed by the infamous ‘Chapo’ Guzmán. Arrests of suspected Siñaloa members account for about 12% of all gang-related arrests since 2006, on par with other major syndicates. (The Gulf Cartel has suffered the brunt of arrests, 44%.
However, when it comes to arrests around Cuidad Juárez since the Mexican army arrived to restore order in March 2008 the numbers are skewed. Sixteen persons with links to Siñaloa have been arrested, but 88 with ties to the Juárez gang have been taken into custody. Says one native of Siñaloa state, “The Calderon government has been fighting organized crime in many parts of the republic, but has not touched Siñaloa…It is like we’re trimming the branches of a tree, when we should be tearing it out by the roots.”
There seems a rather obvious explanation for this trend, but it receives rather short shrift by the NPR report: Can’t part of the discrepancy be chalked up to the larger and more established presence of Juárez gang?
To help make sense of the rivalries that welter Mexico check out an infographic recently published by Americas Quarterly. It provides a rundown of the key players in each gang and charts interesting comparisons to the drug violence that enwrapped Colombia.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
