Latest / The Fourcast / Can Mexico contain cartel violence before the World Cup?

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Can Mexico contain cartel violence before the World Cup? · The Fourcast

0:00
The Mexican government has long shared control of Mexico with
0:03
its different criminal organisations.
0:05
So no, I don't think Mexican citizens necessarily feel that
0:10
the Mexican government is in charge.
0:12
Cartels, an organised crime, will not go anywhere near
0:17
tourists for the World Cup. At the same time, you will be
0:19
extremely near areas that the cartels control, and also you'll
0:25
be very near places where the cartels are burying vast amounts
0:28
of disappeared bodies. Has this revealed the
0:32
inconvenient truth about who really runs Mexico?
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Hello and welcome to the forecast.
0:41
Huge swathes of Mexico have been shut down by a surge of violence
0:44
by drug cartels. After the arrest and killing of
0:47
a drug Lord called El Mencho. He had a $15 million bounty on
0:51
his head courtesy of Donald Trump.
0:52
But when Mexican special forces mounted a raid, he ended up
0:55
dead, unleashing a wave of violence across the country,
0:59
with cartels torching businesses and setting up burning
1:02
blockades. Tourists in resorts have been
1:05
told to stay indoors and a number of football matches have
1:08
been cancelled, including in cities about to host this
1:11
summer's World Cup. So can the Mexican government
1:14
regain control? Or does this show that it is the
1:17
drug gangs who actually run the country?
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In a moment, I'll speak to Cecilia Fafa Mendez, head of the
1:23
North American Observatory at the Global Initiative Against
1:26
Transnational Organized Crime, and Benjamin Smith, professor of
1:29
Latin American history at the University of Warwick and author
1:32
of The Dope, The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade.
1:35
But first, let's go to Deborah Bonello, who's an investigative
1:38
reporter based in Mexico City and managing editor of Insight
1:43
Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in Latin
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America. Deborah, what's been happening
1:49
and what's which is it having on people well?
1:51
Following the killing of Alimento yesterday morning, I
1:55
believe there were some 250 blockades according to the
1:59
Mexican government that took place across around 20 different
2:03
states in Mexico. To be to be clear, even though
2:06
it's called the Helisco Cartel, it has but tentacles all around
2:11
the country really. And I think the violence very
2:14
much reflected that. I know a lot of people who have
2:17
been trapped in Halisco unable to leave via the airport or, or
2:22
or via the the highways there because of the the security
2:25
operation that's come in response to the sort of cartel
2:29
push back. What is the effect when these
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sorts of things happen? Because this is not the first
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time, you know, do do people feel the government's in
2:38
control, the police are in control or the cartels or a bit
2:41
of everything? I think it's a little bit of
2:43
everything. You know, it's important to keep
2:45
in mind that there is kind of a criminal government governance
2:48
that exists in Mexico that has been established by the sort of
2:53
metastasizing cartel power that you've seen across the country.
2:57
So no, I don't think Mexican citizens necessarily feel that
3:02
the Mexican government is in charge.
3:04
And there has been a lot of kind of chaos and disruption across
3:07
the country. Now, of course, the the
3:09
government of Claudia Shanebaum will be very keen to bring
3:13
things back under control. But the fact of the matter is
3:16
that the Mexican government has long shared control of Mexico
3:20
with its different criminal organisations.
3:23
And and when you then see huge numbers of security forces on
3:27
the streets trying to restore order, I imagine that's pretty
3:30
scary too. You know, it's been 20 years
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since the government launched a crackdown on organised crime in
3:38
Mexico. So for better or for worse,
3:40
Mexicans are pretty used to seeing the military on the
3:42
streets. What we did see, you know,
3:46
yesterday was kind of an unprecedented threats of
3:52
reaction from organised crime, but smaller versions of this
3:55
have been going on for the last two decades at least.
3:58
What signal are they sending? Not that it's very subtle.
4:02
It's not subtle at all. And the signal they're sending
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is, you know, we we won't be told what we usually see from
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the decapitation of criminal organisations like this.
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It's a detonation of violence because now there's kind of a
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scrum to replace not the only El Mencho, but, you know, all the
4:24
different kind of regional leadership agreements that,
4:27
that, that, that exist across Mexico.
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So the, the cartel messages, we, we won't be cowed, we won't be
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controlled. And we have, you know, they're
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showing off the, the, the criminal governance that they
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have, as well as the firepower and the capacity for violence
4:46
and chaos. When they lose a leader like our
4:48
Mencho, what effect does it have on the cartel?
4:52
Does it spark chaos or you know, or you know a power struggle or
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what? Yeah.
4:56
Well, I mean, it sparks a leadership contest, right.
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And if, if you've been following things in Mexico, you'll see
5:02
that about 18 months ago, they did very, a very similar thing
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to the Sinaloa cartel. We saw the the high profile
5:09
arrest of Ismail El Maya, Zambala.
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And that followed, of course, El Chapo's arrest and extradition
5:16
starting in 2018-2019. And since the the decapitation,
5:22
if you like, of the Sinaloa, Qatar, we've seen this internal
5:25
war erupt in Sinaloa, which has been going on for the last 18
5:29
months. There's a steady curfew there
5:32
every night. Violence is is constant.
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People live under under siege really.
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And I think we can expect to see a similar version of that play
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out in the Jalisco Cartel strongholds.
5:45
Deborah, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
5:48
Let's turn now to Cecilia and Benjamin.
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Let's begin with Benjamin. What's going on?
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So what we know is that the Mexican military, probably aided
5:56
by the CIA, which has happened before, yesterday, attempted to
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arrest and inadvertently killed the head of a vast organised
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crime group called the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Gena Racion.
6:11
Since then, members of the Cartel Jalisco have been doing
6:15
what is called in Spanish Calintando la Plaza, which is
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effectively means showing that they are in control of areas
6:23
that they can burn buses on, burn businesses in and blockade
6:29
roads in. So it is a show they're doing at
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the moment is a kind of show of force.
6:34
Cecilia, has this revealed the inconvenient truth about who
6:38
really runs Mexico? I think certainly this is not
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the first time that we see a reaction by a criminal group
6:44
after the arrest, attempted arrest or death of one of its
6:47
purported leaders. But I think, you know, to
6:51
essentially say that it is criminal groups who run the
6:53
country would be certainly misguided.
6:55
I think it's certainly important to understand that it was to be
6:58
expected that there would be a backlash in the violence that we
7:01
are seeing today. But at least today, there are
7:04
also reports that there's no more blockades in the country,
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no active blockades in highways. And so certainly the question is
7:11
how can the Mexican government will be able to contain
7:13
violence. But I would not characterize
7:15
these as a criminal group essentially having more
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firepower capacity than the state does.
7:21
How much support and firepower do they actually have?
7:26
I mean are are they effectively private armies?
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I mean, we know certainly from, you know, the evidence and
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certainly like events from yesterday that these are heavily
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armed groups that are also early tech adopters, if you will, in
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the sense that they are willing to innovate and be able to
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contest the state's capacity. But I would again, you know,
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even if they are heavily armed and certainly this links to a
7:53
very important bilateral issue which is that a firearms
7:56
trafficking, I wouldn't characterize them as having or
7:59
outgunning the Mexican state it. Appears the Americans were very
8:03
involved in this particular operation, though, and the key
8:06
intelligence may have come from them.
8:11
Yes. So the US press secretary has
8:13
mentioned that this was an operation that was conducted
8:17
with U.S. intelligence, but there has been a lot of emphasis
8:20
and it was conducted by the Mexican Army and Mexican forces.
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And even the US government also thanked the Mexican army for,
8:28
you know, the actions that took place.
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So, you know, at least as of now, the official narrative that
8:34
we have or the official version that we have is that this was
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possible due to cooperation, but that the actual, the actual
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operation in Mexico was carried out by Mexican authorities with
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U.S. intelligence. So, Benjamin, if that's the
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official narrative, what what? What is the real the
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relationship and the politics of what's going on here?
8:55
As to why the Mexicans would act and do something that they would
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have known would be very provocative.
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As Cecilia says, there have been similar uprisings in the past
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when they've tried to grab key figures.
9:09
Yeah. I mean, I think it's
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particularly risky. The Mexican government over the
9:11
last year has been very heavy on showing that it's bringing down
9:15
homicide rates. Now, I'm sure Cecilia and I can
9:17
talk about whether that is true, whether they're actually
9:20
bringing down homicide rates, because I think that's very much
9:23
open to discussion. However, you're right in saying
9:27
that either arresting or killing Mensch or they knew it would
9:32
cause an enormous amount of not only this kind of initial
9:37
demonstration of force, but one suspects that in the next few
9:40
months we're going to have fairly bloody confrontations
9:42
between the remnants of the cartel Helisco for the the
9:46
actual control of the cartel. However, I think there are a few
9:50
things going on here. A, you've got the World Cup
9:53
coming up. So they want to demonstrate that
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they have got control of the country.
9:57
That's why I think it's quite risky. 2 You've got Trump
10:00
putting an enormous amount of pressure on the Mexican
10:03
president to clamp down on on organised crime.
10:07
At the same time you also have different groups within Mexico.
10:11
It's quite noticeable this was done by the military.
10:14
Now we know that Claudia Shambaum, the the president is
10:18
broadly on the surface support of the media military, but in
10:21
actual fact she's trying to balance the military's enormous
10:26
control in Mexico with her own federal police force, her own
10:32
public security. So one here, how much Claudia
10:37
Shane Baum actually knew about this particular, this particular
10:43
arrest at all? I mean, it's conceivable that
10:46
this was done by the military to a certain extent without her
10:51
knowing. Do they?
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Have that level of autonomy. They're the biggest military in
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Latin America. Do they have that autonomy?
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Well, I'm sure no one in the Mexican administration has said
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that, but insiders certainly tell me that they do to a
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certain have that much autonomy. They are an enormous, extremely
11:08
powerful military. I think, and correct me if I'm
11:11
wrong Cecilia, but I think there's somewhere around 450,000
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of them. Cecilia.
11:19
I mean, I, I have a different take on, you know, the autonomy
11:23
of the military. And certainly what I, I would
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say is that, you know, regardless of whether the
11:28
president knew or didn't know about this, what was going to
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happen. I think it's a smart move for
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her administration to distance herself from the actual
11:37
information that was put out yesterday, for instance, and to
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lead the Ministry of Defence to be the one releasing the public
11:44
information. And to not to say that she's not
11:46
involved, but I think by creating some distance between
11:49
that messaging and, you know, letting other ministries inform
11:53
about this, she's basically, you know, saying this is a security
11:56
issue. And I'm going to let you know my
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agents who deal with these issues give that message.
12:01
But how much pressure is she under from Donald Trump?
12:06
I mean, I think certainly, and this is no secret that the US
12:09
government has expressed even before the second Trump
12:13
administration, a level of frustration with the Mexican
12:16
government in terms of fentanyl. I think it's very important to
12:20
also note that President Chambon has certainly distance herself
12:24
from measures that President Lopez Obrador did.
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And mainly she stopped framing fentanyl as AUS only problem.
12:31
She's spoken about how this is, you know, she doesn't want
12:35
anyone dying from a fentanyl overdose and has definitely
12:37
changed the tone of conversation with the US and US engagement.
12:41
And while I certainly don't minimize some of the pressure
12:43
that the US government has, I will also like to under score
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that there's an interest also for Mexico to reduce the levels
12:49
of violence, to reduce some of this criminality that can be
12:52
quite predatory against individuals and businesses, like
12:55
extortion, for instance, which we know is a main source of
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income for Jalisco Noah Generacion, which Elemental was
13:03
the leader of. So certainly there's that US
13:05
conversation, but I would add that there's also an interest in
13:08
Mexico in weakening these structures as well.
13:11
What what has happened over the last few months to their
13:14
business model, given the changes on the border and the
13:19
stopping of people you know has has the drug trade been
13:23
disrupted? Well, I mean, what is very clear
13:27
is fentanyl is still going into the United States and still
13:30
killing 10s of thousands of people through overdoses.
13:34
I think that's that's completely clear.
13:35
And I'm not sure that that's certainly not going to end by
13:39
taking out Mensure or any number of of kingpins.
13:42
I mean depending how you designate A kingpin, about 200
13:46
or so have been arrested or killed over the last 20 years
13:48
and it's done absolutely nothing to drug supply in the United
13:53
States. In terms of the pressure
13:56
there's, I mean, I do think there is an inordinate amount of
13:58
pressure that has been put on, on Shamebound to do something.
14:03
I think they've what they've done is an extraordinary kind of
14:07
propaganda exercise. Over the last year, the Mexican
14:11
government claims to have brought homicide rates down by
14:13
42%, which is kind of extraordinary.
14:15
That's the kind of drop in murders that you see post civil
14:19
war. However, I think 2 things are
14:22
happening here. 1 they're what they called in the wire duking
14:25
the figures. They're putting what are
14:26
homicides into claiming their suicides or accidental deaths.
14:32
And two, they've come to tacit agreements with the cartels to
14:36
bury, to not murder people in public, but rather disappear the
14:41
bodies. So I think that that's
14:45
effectively shame bound and her security forces answer to this
14:51
Trumpian pressure. And I think honestly, Trump
14:54
doesn't care. To him, it look to to the
14:58
American audience, it looks like Mexico is getting safer.
15:03
Murders are going down. Right, So, So what?
15:06
What is the relationship in your mind between the governments and
15:10
the cartels right now? Well, I think it's again you get
15:17
an academic on and they say it's very complicated, not helpful.
15:20
I realise that. So effectively it really depends
15:23
on the kind of regions that you're talking about.
15:24
There is no doubt there are sways of Mexico where both state
15:29
governors and town governors, and I think maybe your audience
15:32
doesn't know, but town governors or municipal governors,
15:36
municipal presidents in Mexico extremely powerful and they have
15:41
relatively close relationships with the cartels in certainly in
15:48
a lot of western Mexico, the cartels off basically are a kind
15:52
of shadow government which are on the one hand moving large
15:57
amounts of drugs and illegal timber, illegal mining products,
16:02
illegal immigrants, sex trafficked people.
16:05
They're moving these things out of Mexico and into the United
16:08
States, but they are also fairly integral to the to supporting
16:15
governments in these areas as well.
16:18
Cecilia, I mean, what would you say about this in terms of what,
16:21
what is the real relationship on the ground between formal
16:26
authority and the real authority of the cartels?
16:31
It largely depends on which parts of the country we're
16:34
talking about and what kind of businesses we're talking about.
16:36
But I will say, though, is that I think it's very important to
16:39
not characterize these as criminal groups running Mexico
16:43
and essentially making the decisions and just the
16:45
government being there as a puppet.
16:46
That's certainly not the situation on the ground and
16:49
while certainly there is corruption and especially at the
16:52
local level, I wouldn't just say, well, this is the case for
16:55
every municipality in the country.
16:58
No, but there's certainly coexistence, isn't it?
17:00
I mean, my, my very limited experience of Mexico.
17:03
I mean, it's quite some years ago.
17:04
I was there in 2017 doing a film about murders and the death rate
17:11
and, and I, I witnessed a murder in Acapulco.
17:16
A man was shot across the road from our hotel and we went down
17:20
to the street and nobody dared approach him because the, you
17:25
know, the guy from the cartel was still there with a camera,
17:30
sort of. And so people were very wary,
17:32
obviously, that he waited for the man to die because he'd
17:37
only, he'd been shot and injured initially.
17:39
And only then did the police turn up.
17:42
And it kind of seemed coordinated at the time, you
17:46
know, that they kind of, they knew when, when it was safe for
17:48
them to move in and when, when the cartel had left.
17:52
And you, you know, I, I, I mean, I don't know how much things
17:55
have changed over the last nine years, but from what Benjamin is
17:58
saying, it's, it's, it's still quite an enmeshed problem.
18:05
I mean, surely Mexico has high levels of violence and homicides
18:09
and disappearances. I would, you know, add to that.
18:12
But that's, you know, an important problem for Mexico and
18:15
certainly we have seen egregious forms of corruption.
18:19
But again, I think what's very important is to not make a
18:22
blanket statement about the country and how these, you know,
18:25
just describes everywhere. And I think, you know, over time
18:28
it were to look at a map of where violence is distributed in
18:31
fluent homicides and disappearances.
18:34
You will see that for the most part, this varies considerably
18:37
over time. There's a few cities that
18:38
remain, you know, hot spots, as it's referred to in the
18:43
literature, related to violence. But I, again, I think it depends
18:47
sometimes at the time of place who is in power and how these
18:50
relationships change. But again, I think it's very
18:53
important, especially in the context of bilateral engagement
18:55
with the US, to not just portray Mexico as a country that is run
18:59
by criminals because that is just, you know, I would agree.
19:01
I would say that the evidence is not there for that.
19:04
Benjamin I mean, let's turn to the World Cup, which is the
19:06
obvious immediate question around Mexico.
19:10
People are wondering whether to travel.
19:13
I guess the authorities are wondering whether these games
19:15
can go ahead. It's only a it's only a few
19:19
months away. Yeah, I, well, I mean, I, I, I
19:23
would say to any of the audience that I think can go to the World
19:26
Cup, it will be completely safe. And there is a fundamental
19:29
reason for this is that if you are a Mexican who kills another
19:33
Mexican, there is a, it is very, very unlikely you will be
19:36
prosecuted. If you are a Mexican who kills a
19:39
foreigner, there is a very high likelihood that you will be
19:42
prosecuted. So basically cartels and
19:44
organised crime will not go anywhere near tourists for the
19:49
World Cup. So I would say that they're
19:51
probably going to be safe. However, the one thing I would
19:55
say is at the same time you will be extremely near areas that the
19:59
cartels control and also you'll be very near places where the
20:06
cartels are burying vast amounts of disappeared bodies.
20:10
I think the about a year ago the Mexican government.
20:16
Well, only because the mothers of the disappeared discovered
20:19
it. But the mothers of the
20:20
disappeared discovered a ranch just outside Guadalajara, which
20:24
is one of the sites of the World Cup games.
20:27
This ranch had two massive industrial ovens and bone
20:31
fragments from literally thousands of victims.
20:34
This was run by the cartel Jalisco within, I think, about
20:38
30 minutes of a military barracks.
20:41
So you're trying to tell me that the military didn't know what
20:43
was going on there? Right.
20:46
But you but you think as long as they don't try and arrest
20:49
anybody else before June, things things should be calm by then?
20:54
Well, well, also again, this the, the coal tails aren't
20:58
stupid. I mean, you, we say there's been
20:59
a lot of violence over the last day, and there has, but it's
21:02
been violence that's almost entirely either focused on the
21:04
military or the National Guard or on trucks and buses.
21:10
They haven't gone after tourists because to do so would be
21:12
suicidal. So, Cydia, is that still the
21:15
case? I mean, again, I mean, sorry to
21:17
harm back to nine years ago, but but that was precisely the story
21:21
we were doing. But there were there were lots
21:22
of there were lots of tourists in places even like Cancun where
21:27
shootings were going on on the beach and people didn't even
21:30
notice. I, I went to one shooting
21:32
literally on the beach outside one of those five star hotels
21:36
and was talking to people who were sort of 100 meters away and
21:39
they didn't know, they hadn't even noticed while the police
21:41
tape was being being put up. So, so you know, foreigners and
21:45
visitors remain safe even if the locals don't.
21:52
I mean, I'm glad that you bring up the World Cup because I think
21:55
this again, allows us to put something that's very important
21:57
on the table. And precisely, you know, for
21:59
people who love traveling to Mexico, who love to spend their
22:02
vacation time there. I think it brings to the table
22:05
that the issue again, of farms trafficking and why is it that
22:08
criminal groups are able to have this firepower.
22:12
And so this is part of the conversation that we want to
22:14
have not just stay on a conversation around cartels, but
22:17
also question, well, how are they able to, to perpetrate
22:21
these levels of violence? And I think to Ben's point of,
22:24
you know, foreigners having a relatively degree of safety, I,
22:28
I agree with that. I agree that, you know, cartels
22:31
and criminal groups learn and adapt over time.
22:34
And one thing that they have learned is that going after
22:35
foreigners is actually very bad for their business.
22:38
And unfortunately, it also underscores that you have
22:41
different types of victims in the country.
22:43
And, you know, about a year ago, surfers from Australia
22:49
disappeared in Baja California. And unlike the 120,000 people
22:54
who are missing in Mexico, their bodies were actually found.
22:56
And even in this tragedy, what that shows you is that you can
22:59
have different types of victims. And again, foreigners you know
23:04
is different for them. Thank you both very much indeed.
23:07
Cecilia and Benjamin, thank you very much for joining us.
23:09
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
23:12
And that's the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.