Violence in Michoacán is exacerbated by criminal routes with bordering states: SSP

José Alfredo Ortega Reyes, Secretary of Public Security of Michoacán, attributes that the wave of violence in the state is exacerbated by the spread of criminal groups that have established routes of passage between neighboring entities.

The official reiterated the explanations that had only been mentioned circumstantially by Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, with the intention of seeking police coordination with Jalisco, Guerrero, Colima, Guanajuato, and which already entered into force on February 24 with the State of Mexico.

Ortega Reyes explained in an interview with Infobae Mexico that 45 of Michoacán's 113 municipalities are bordered by 46 mayors, more than five states, something used by criminal cells to pursue their interests in one area and take refuge in another, seeking refuge in another impunity for any crime.

For the secretary, this is a problem in which they should act together, although in the last 16 years the Michoacán entity has remained a red focus due to the territorial disputes of cartels that are fought, replaced, disjointed and remain with remnants.

Since 1990, the Millennium Cartel expanded in that region and by 2005 the Zetas entered the battle to extend their dominance from Tamaulipas. This led to the beginning of the drug war in that home state of then-President Felipe Calderón in late 2006.

In the first decade of the 2000s there were already groups such as the Michoacán Family that were attacked and a fracture led to the Knights Templar. Between 2013 and 2014, the self-defence groups led by civilians emerged who took up arms to protect themselves against abuses of extortion and murders of drug traffickers.

Faced with the lack of control, Enrique Peña Nieto's government legitimized the community with weapons and uniforms, but there was an infiltration of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG). Other leaders forgiven not to be persecuted continued their dominion and joined together in new cells that established alliances in United Cartels in 2019, by suspending agreements with Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes's group, el Mencho.

Governor Ramirez Bedolla has indicated that 12 criminal groups are currently operating in Michoacan, according to the map presented at his meetings with the security cabinet. Practically, this presence is throughout the territory, but Ortega Reyes pointed out that the focus of attention is on the borders.

According to the secretary, the battles in Tierra Caliente, in the southwest valley of the entity, can be understood by strategic interests to cover Colima and Jalisco. Federal and local authorities have already reiterated that there are CJNG cells, as well as in the west.

While on the eastern side of Michoacán, which encompasses Zitácuaro and Tlalpujahua, the incursions are for the same objectives as maintaining dominance in the municipality of Oro, in the State of Mexico. In this area groups of the Michoacán Family have been recognized, but nearby, in Ciudad Hidalgo, the Correas intervene.

The strategy, said the retired general, would allow to act in joint security forces of each state to prevent or react to the commission of crimes at the borders exploited by criminals. But only the Mexican entity has shown signs of collaborating.

The extortion of avocado or lemon producers, as well as interest in collecting illegal fees from mining companies, were not warned by the Secretary of Security among the intentions of criminals to fight for the squares. Although it has acknowledged the uptick in drug use on the black market in Morelia.

Guadalupe Correa Cabrera, an organized crime investigator, has indicated to this portal that fragmented criminal groups are reluctant to disappear, because they follow the criminal model inaugurated by the Zetas: to control the territory and all possible businesses in that geographical space, both the extraction of income from legal businesses such as those of illicit origin.

If they are located on the northern and southern borders of the country, they become entrenched in the smuggling of migrants, which in turn can be exploited to incorporate the shipment of drugs. But if they are close to Petroleos Mexicanos pipelines, the market may be hydrocarbon theft.

While illegal logging of precious timber can be exploited in forested areas, the coasts are used for the landing or sending of shipments of narcotics or receiving chemical precursors to synthesize methamphetamine or fentanyl. And the saw is useful for planting marijuana and poppy, as well as hiding drug laboratories.

Those of transnational scope such as the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel can fight for these local businesses, however, they are focused on the export of tons of narcotics by transfer routes from South America, Central America, through Mexico to the United States and Europe, although their scopes have been identified on the five continents.

So the violence that left more than 700 people killed in the first quarter of 2022 in Michoacán, has more complex scope than territorial disputes.

Although, the secretary explained which areas are of priority attention, he also argued that the agency in his charge must hire at least 5,000 police officers to cover their tasks and thus reach 10,000 troops. To date, the state corporation has had to replace municipal elements in 12 mayors and two localities, which do not have local security.

Some interventions were in borderlands, such as Tlalpujahua, where three agents and a taxi driver were killed in October last year and the rest of the troops resigned out of fear.

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