VIOLENCE AND CORRUPTION IN TAMAULIPAS: MATAMOROS AS KIDNAPPING HOTSPOT
According to the National Register of Missing Persons (RNPED), from 2007-2015, nation-wide, nearly 28,000 people are officially missing in Mexico, or in other words: dead, kidnapped or enslaved. At least 6,000 of those bodies - and thousand others that remain officially unreported - are the result of crime, violence and corruption in the state of Tamaulipas. Several other states in Northern Mexico like Nuevo León and Baja California also rank high. At least 2,500 missing are of unknown nationality, meaning both foreigners and nationals alike.
Currently, armed confrontations between rival drug cartels - along with dead and injured bystanders - keep going strong. Kidnappings, extortions and assassinations are steady. Most alarmingly, however, is the fact that public government officials hold a close-knit relationship not just with members of organized crime but also with individuals known to be involved with money laundering.
Many have noted that under Egidio Torre Cantú’s term - the state’s governor since 2011 - Tamaulipas social climate resembles a war-zone. In May of 2015, there was no doubt that such a comparison is not unreasonable at all: two explosive artifacts were indeed detonated outside the National Electoral Institute (INE) and the Municipal Police headquarters of Matamoros respectively. The event was reminiscent of 2012’s car bomb that killed several police officers just outside the mayor’s office in Nuevo Laredo.
In Reynosa, just last week, armed federal police forces engaged in a public confrontation against an unidentified group of armed criminals - in all likeliness belonging to drug cartels - that attacked a PGR headquarters by ramming a bulletproof vehicle against its garage doors and opening fire at police officers. The event escalated in a high-speed persecution - and shootout - across several areas of the city, leaving a toll of dead and wounded. It is not unreasonable to believe it was retaliation for a deal gone wrong between drug dealers and police forces.
It is definitely an ongoing problem. Many homicides in the state indeed come with the struggle for drug trade and territory control. We must remember that notwithstanding continued military presence and the advent of the Tamaulipas Coordination Group (GTC) - a specialized unit made of both state and federal security and armed forces - since 2014, authorities have been unable to stabilize, much less eradicate violence and the generalized sense of insecurity in several sectors of the state, as we’ve previously reported.
In fact, days after the PGR attack that took place in Reynosa, in the neighbor city of Matamoros, federal police forces seized - in different spots of the city - three vehicles loaded with weapons. Seven assault rifles, 30 magazines, and nearly ten thousand rounds. Interestingly enough - and such is not clear in the police reports - the drivers got away by foot.
Their escape cannot be taken entirely as a surprise: it actually speaks loudly about currently existing accords between organized crime and police authorities. It must be said: along with homicides and disappearances, corruption in the police force is another nation-wide problem that has recently become very visible, particularly in the Northern states of Mexico. Baja California is another example of both: 1,300 missing in 2015 as well as the assassination of several police officers in the beginning of December.
As we’ve mentioned, in Tamaulipas, however, part of the issue can be explained through the continued - and continuously re-shifting - struggle for power and territorial control between rival drug groups Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. Their confrontations - a kind of urban war - have not ceased to leave a trail of bodies in their midst.
Early December, for instance, several newspapers received information about the kidnapping and murder of Rogelio Rolando González - known as “Kelin” or “Z-2”, who is one of the original founding members of drug cartel and organized crime group Los Zetas. The Gulf Cartel is allegedly responsible for the incident.
The problem arose when González - shortly after his prison release - set out to dispute control over the Matamoros area and threatened to dispose rival Gulf Cartel leader Odon Azua Cruces, known as “El Gordo Cereza”. The latter had González - along with wife and family - kidnapped and killed. Though the bodies haven’t been found, they simply add on to the vast list - and counting - of disappeared bodies in the Mexican territory. In 2015, 5,700 bodies in Tamaulipas alone have been officially reported missing.
Azua Cruces has come to be known precisely for kidnapping and ransom. His group is but one of example of the 300% increase in kidnappings over the past three years in the state of Tamaulipas. 694% higher than in the rest of Mexico. In January and February of 2015: 40 reported kidnappings. The actual number is unknown since a considerably large number are never reported to authorities, for fear of repercussions and because of law enforcement’s notoriety for being unable to attend kidnappings - or making the situation worst.
Part of their inability to attend the issue can be explained as a lack of interest by part of authorities. Actually, the Specialized Attorney’s Office for the Search of Disappeared Persons declared they only count with 120 public servants that currently work in the search of missing bodies.
In fact, an ex municipal president of Matamoros, Alfonso Sánchez Garza, was nearly kidnapped in August of this year. His lack of trust in authorities to attend the problem was such that after managing to escape from his assailants - who attempted to stop his vehicle in the middle of the road - he simply went home and made a public call through social media about the incident. Such a maneuver has become considerably safer than an official report.
In May of 2015, 47 hostages - 18 foreigners and 29 Mexican nationals - were found in a safe house after an anonymous call supposedly alerted authorities. Last month, in November, 19 kidnappers were apprehended by authorities in the city of Matamoros. Along with two hostages, weapons and drugs were found.
Two of the kidnappers were actually underage. Again, it should be noted that Tamaulipas is the state with a larger amount of underage criminal activity: authorities arrest children for carrying guns, assault rifles and grenades more so than any other place in Mexico. Over 200 children were sanctioned in 2014. Over 30% of disappearances nation-wide indeed account for underage persons from Guerrero and Tamaulipas.
Moreover, streets and roads are increasingly a real danger to travel through. Francisco Rivas, spokesman or the National Citizen Observatory, has accurately explained that traveling the roads of Tamaulipas may very well result in “the entire vehicle” being seized. In the Matamoros-Reynosa highway particularly, robberies and kidnappings have increased since September.
Another recurring issue in the city of Reynosa, in fact, is the theft of gasoline. On the 15th of this month, 3 members of a group were arrested in the vicinity. They were seized along with 65 grams of heroine and 7 thousand dollars in cash. 157 thousand liters of gasoline were also taken from the group. Such events are yet another symptom of crime and corruption in the vicinity.
Yet, Governor Torre Cantú continues to announce the advent of police groups with the declared aim of bettering the situation while simultaneously undermining the issues by saying the wave of violence is merely a “rumor”. But what is there to be done of the daily kidnappings, shootouts, murders, and disappearances?
The relationship between drug cartels and the state’s government is not just known through Torre Cantú’s current term but it has been known through his predecessors’ terms: Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba and Eugenio Hernández Flores, for instance, both who have been known for previously held accords and money laundering activities with organized crime.
For instance, the U.S. government is currently investigating Hernández Flores - with whom Torre Cantú holds a public, open relationship - for money laundering and other related offenses. Over 30 million dollars and several assets are in dispute.
From 2005-2010 he collaborated with drug cartels and contributed to laundering their assets. Torre Cantú - during his government's last State of the Union - expressed that he “really appreciated the company of our state’s ex Governors” Cavazos Lema and Hernández Flores, who were sitting in the audience.
And even though merely two days ago authorities managed to capture regional narco leader Leonel Hernández Bautista – along with weapons, ammo and drugs – in the Valle Hermoso area within Matamoros, both the governor and police forces alike have been unable to curtail criminal activity coming from that particular area in Tamaulipas.
It is undoubtedly one of the most heavily impacted by organized crime. The recent attack on the PGR headquarters, the weapons and ammunition recently seized, the territorial dispute between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, as well as the alarming amount of disappeared people in the region make Matamoros one of the most dangerous and unstable vicinities for both nationals and foreigners alike. The recent kidnapping bust confirms Matamoros’ reputation as one of the hottest spots in the state – and the nation – for kidnapping and extortion.
Things have escalated to such degree that even the maquiladora industry may be stumped in Matamoros. Gerardo Rodríguez Puente from the Mexican Institute of Social Security declared that workers in neighbor city Reynosa are nearly double than those in Matamoros. The necessity to disrupt the climate of violence and corruption in the city is undeniable: something must be done in order to attain greater social security while also stimulating the trust of companies interested in coming in – or continuing - to invest in Matamoros.