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Nacro Violence in Guanajuato

Criminal Violence in Guanajuato

This is an article by Tomas Andres and Michael Carvallo in Small Wars Journal discussing the recent upsurge of violence in Guanajuato, Mexico.  This is rooted in inter-cartel violence exacerbated by the kingpin strategy pursued by the United States and Mexico.  This multiplied criminal organizations by creating struggles for secession and splinter groups who turned to other criminal activities besides narco-trafficking to make money.  In the state of Guanajuato - far from the U.S. border - this is through natural resource theft and attempting to control the domestic drug market, largely with respect to meth. The article makes important points about the importance of each of these: 

• Gasoline:  “The theft of Pemex fuel for sale on the black market is a major criminal racket in Mexico, causing over one billion USD in losses to the state oil company at its peak in 2016.[67] According to organized crime expert Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, this criminal market, called “huachicol” in Mexico, was first pioneered by the Zetas, a criminal group whose expansion in the 2000s was propelled by their violent military tactics and diversification.[68] The CSRL, who splintered off from the Zetas in the late 2000s were instrumental in turning Guanajuato into one of the states with the highest counts of illegal Pemex fuel taps in the late 2010s.”

• Meth: “Guanajuato is a major market for illicit drugs, especially methamphetamine. Earlier this year, the Secretary of Public Security, Alvar Cabeza de Vaca Appendini, claimed in an interview with news daily Noticieros en Líneathat the drug market in Guanajuato is worth about 60 million pesos ($2,904,247.US dollars) daily.[80] Multiplied for the year, this means that Guanajuato is worth just over 1 billion US dollars, a tremendous sum for the criminal groups who fight for dominance of the local drug dealing market.” 

 Violence has come into the play on account of the CNGJ (Cartel de Nueva Generacion de Jalisco) invading Guanajuato and uprooting, to a large extent, the Cartel Santa Rosa de Lima.  The conflict sites have been tire shops where gasoline pilfered from PEMEX pipelines is sold - along with meth.  There have been dozens of armed attacks on tire shops from gunmen, as the following table indicates. 

The attacks have abated in recent years owing to two factors. CNGJ overpowered the CSRL throughout most of the state and government enforcement policies (Golpe de Timon) has focused more on the CSRL than the CNGJ, owing to the latter’s greater capacity to deter governmental repression, as the article reports:   
        



"Compared to the CSRL, who lost several top commanders and members of El Marro’s family, the            CJNG has not been as impacted by the government. While the Golpe de Timón also captured                    significant numbers of their members and equipment, the CJNG’s top leadership in the state has                remained relatively unscathed. In fact, after a government attempt to capture regional CJNG leader            Ricardo Ruiz Velasco “El RR” or “The YouTuber” in August 2022, the CJNG flexed their strength            by burning dozens of businesses and vehicles in a dozen cities across the states of Jalisco and                    Guanajuato, a reminder that their influence in the state has grown as the CSRL’s has waned."

What this suggests, as I have gathered elsewhere (for example, the whole Culicanazo episode), is that powerful criminal organizations have the capacity to use violence to deter governmental action against them.

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