The Long History of High-Profile Drug Attacks in Mexico

The murder of the former governor of Jalisco Aristóteles Sandoval is just the latest example of the violence that organized crime is capable of exercising in Mexico.

The Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, CJNG, in particular, has become one of the bloodiest for its attacks against politicians and officials.

The criminal organization has been attacking high-profile public servants for years.

His last target was Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch.

The group's hitmen tried to assassinate him this year.

In June, a group of hit men linked to the Jalisco criminal network attacked the official in the early morning hours near Paseo de Reforma, in the capital, when he was on his way to work.

The gunmen ambushed García Harfuch's truck and fired more than 400 times.

The police chief received several hits, none fatal.

He soon recovered and returned to his duties.

From the beginning, García Harfuch pointed to the Jalisco cartel.

The same day of the attack, the official wrote a message on his Twitter account, blaming the criminal network.

A score of hit men participated in the attack, for which they used high-powered assault rifles, including a 50-caliber Barrett rifle, capable of shooting down helicopters.

The organization's firepower in this case surprised as much as its mistakes.

Due to the number of people and the power of weapons they used, it seemed difficult for them to fail, but they did.

With the attack against Harfuch, the threats that the CJNG had recently made against other public servants, among them the current governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, emerged.

So said at least one of the alleged hitmen who was part of the team that tried to assassinate García Harfuch.

Alfaro had been threatened "for not pulling" with them.

That is, for not letting them work.

"What we are seeing is not only a threat against a Governor, but also a challenge to the Mexican State," Alfaro said at the time.

Before García Harfuch, the most relevant attack was the one suffered by former Jalisco prosecutor Luis Carlos Nájera, in Guadalajara.

It was in May 2018. Nájera, who had been a prosecutor for part of Aristóteles Sandoval's years (2013-2018), was in a restaurant on Chapultepec avenue, one of the most lively avenues in the Jalisco capital.

"Two suspicious people entered, who I located as members of organized crime," Najera said after the attack.

"I put my escorts on alert, I asked them to have the armored van covering the entrance when I left."

Nájera was able to escape, but the gunmen left a trail of wounded in the shooting.

When they fled, they blocked several roads in the city, creating chaos.

The motive was never clear, although several regional media reported the death of an alleged CJNG member in 2015, Heriberto Acevedo Cárdenas, alias El Gringo.

Nájera pointed out then that the reason "could be this division that exists between groups of the same poster to try to heat the square as it is vulgarly said".

When the attack occurred, the former prosecutor had rejoined the state cabinet as secretary of labor.

Ten days after the attack, he resigned.

Nájera was not the only official close to Sandoval attacked by the Jalisco cartel.

Its Secretary of Tourism, Jesús Gallegos, was targeted by the hitmen in March 2013, just a few days after taking office.

Gallegos received several bullets from the hitmen, who shot him up to 16 times with pistols when the former was in his vehicle.

The official died of injuries to the pelvis, chest and abdomen.

Gallegos's colleagues and acquaintances pointed out that due to the short time he had been in office, it was possible that the attack was related to his previous activities.

Over time, the authorities arrested several of the alleged perpetrators, including Daniel Quintero, a person close to the leader of the CJNG, Nemesio Oseguera, alias Mencho.

Quintero fell in 2015 in Quintana Roo and spent five years in prison, accused of the murder of Gallegos and other crimes.

Surprisingly, the alleged criminal regained his freedom just a few weeks ago, when a judge acquitted him of the Gallegos murder case.