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