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The 'narco-blockades' corner Zacatecas

2022-08-29T03:46:20.334Z


The authorities ask to avoid trips due to the burning of vehicles on the main roads of the State, but they emphasize that there are no injured people


The main roads of Zacatecas have woken up this Saturday taken over by organized crime.

The authorities have reported several

drug blockades

and the burning of vehicles on three highways in the northern state, one of the hot spots of violence in Mexico.

The state police have attributed the attacks to "criminal cells", in retaliation for the "operations and coups" against criminal groups.

"We have reinforced security and so far the situation is under control," said General Adolfo Marín, the state secretary for Public Security.

"In none of these events were injured or dead people reported," he added.

The recommendation for the inhabitants is to avoid travel, if possible.

The blockades were registered during the early morning in at least five highway points.

The three roads affected were federal highway 54, in the section between the homonymous capital of Zacatecas and the city of Villanueva;

on federal highway 45, near Fresnillo, the second most populous urban center in the state, and on state highway 23. In Fresnillo, the heart of an important mining region, more than 97% of the inhabitants say they feel unsafe where they live, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.

The first reports indicate that armed men stripped several people of their vehicles, including trailers, trucks, taxis and private cars to set them on fire.

The criminal groups also affected dozens of cars with the so-called “rim punctures”, metal stars that ruin the tires and prevent them from moving forward.

Marín has not said to which group those who perpetrated the attacks belong, nor has he reported any detainees, but he has said that several vehicles have been withdrawn to resume circulation.

“We consider that the recent events recorded on the highways of Zacatecas are a reaction to the results obtained by the security corporations,” Marín has insisted several times in statements recorded on video.

The general has said that since the Zacatecas II security plan was launched in November of last year, more than 90 "priority targets" have been arrested, classified by the state and federal government as "generators of violence."

The arrests have occurred mainly in the cities of Zacatecas, Fresnillo, Guadalupe and Jerez for crimes ranging from kidnapping and drug dealing to sexual violence and homicides.

Firefighters put out a burned trailer on Highway 54 in Zacatecas.Adolfo Vladimir (CUARTOSCURO)

Corporations such as the Army, Navy and National Guard, as well as local security forces, participate in the "zero impunity" operation, and it was ordered directly by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The federal authorities assured that in the first quarter of the year a reduction of almost 20% in crimes under federal jurisdiction was achieved and that it was the lowest figure in seven years.

Last July, the head of the National Defense Secretariat said that the Gulf Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel had made an alliance to wage a war for territory in the entity against other criminal groups.

One of the capos detained in the framework of the Zacatecas II plan was Oscar "N", the surname is omitted, alias

La Mosca

, regional head of both organizations in Zacatecas.

Governor David Monreal, brother of Ricardo Monreal, the leader of Morena's caucus in the Senate and presidential candidate, has not commented on the violent events during the first hours that followed the attack.

Until the end of last July, 555 investigation folders have been opened for intentional homicides, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the Public Security System.

In the last month, drug cartels have unleashed chaos in different parts of the country.

Groups related to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel set fire to vehicles and stores, and blocked streets in the states of Jalisco and Guanajuato.

In Baja California there were also cars set on fire in the border city of Tijuana, as well as in practically all the main cities of the entity.

In Ciudad Juárez there were at least nine deaths in various episodes of violence, including a brawl in a prison between members of the Pacific Cartel and the Juárez Cartel in which two prisoners died.

This week, eight people were executed in the vicinity of the municipal palace of Tuzantla, in the area of ​​Michoacán known as Tierra Caliente.

Also in August,

Despite the wave of violence, the Government of López Obrador has minimized the events and has ruled out that they are acts of terrorism.

The president described the attacks as "criminal propaganda" by the

narco

, accused the media of "sensationalism"

and said it was an attempt to draw the attention of the authorities.

As in the case of Zacatecas, the attacks were justified as a reaction to the federal government's security strategy.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-29

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