Photo: JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images
For: The opinion Updated Dec 27, 2022, 11:34 am EST
What in 2009 began as the appearance of yet another criminal group in Mexico, 14 years later has become one of the cartels that lashes practically the entire country with its violence, and so far no one has been able to stop it.
We refer to Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), whose founder and current top leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho”remains a fugitive from justice and is a priority target by authorities in the United States and Mexico.
Its growth throughout this time has been such that it has even taken territories and drug trafficking routes from the Sinaloa cartelthat is, the criminal organization that for decades had dominated drug trafficking activities in Mexico, and whose former leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmanis already locked up in an American prison.
The power of the CJNG even allowed it to do something that no other Mexican cartel had dared to do, and that is to manufacture its own weapons, as revealed by the newspaper Milenio, noting that in 2014 the “Mencho” organization put into operation two medium-scale factories of AR-15 riflesthe only ones that the authorities have found so far.
According to the cited media, this would be a measure implemented by the cartel so as not to depend on traffickers, and thus prevent the weapons used in crimes from being tracked by the authorities by serial numbers.
Both arms factories were installed in small warehouses located in the city of Guadalajara, and the authorities announced that they had the capacity to build about 20 rifles a day. State police seized five finished AR-15 rifles and a pair of barrels.
In addition, a CNC lathe machine, various metal molds for making magazines, stocks, barrels and firing mechanisms were found in the warehouses.
“Highly sophisticated machinery is being ensured, which has very precise software that allowed such cuts to be made to finish the weapon mechanism and that the weapon finished perfectly,” said the then Jalisco prosecutor, Luis Carlos Nájera.
It is unknown how long these weapons centers operatedsince when Milenio requested via transparency information on the number of clandestine factories insured in the country by the Army, the Navy and the Attorney General of the Republic, from 2015 to date, all these agencies replied that they did not have information in this regard.
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