Meet the Battlefield Bishop Taking on Mexico's Most Bloodthirsty Cartels
In one of Mexico’s most troubled states, where the government is powerless against local cartels, a lone priest struggles to keep the peace.
Jeremy Kryt
Published Jul. 09, 2022 11:35PM ET
The province of Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, is a troubled land where almost two dozen cartels, gangs, and vigilante groups battle for supremacy over drug production and shipping routes. The state has largely given up trying to maintain order here, ceding large swaths of the countryside to criminal bands.
Many rural communities have become ghost towns, their residents often fleeing north to the U.S. border to escape the armed groups that prey on them. A recent video that went viral on social media shows a squad of Mexican soldiers at a remote highway checkpoint watching helplessly as a massive convoy of sicarios bearing assault rifles rolls through their outpost.
“It is in the rural areas where criminal groups take advantage of the local populations and force them to cultivate drug crops. If they refuse they will be summarily executed,” said a federal police officer, who agreed to speak only under the condition of anonymity.
“The security situation in Guerrero and many other areas in Mexico has fallen prey to the hyper violent cartels,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of International Operations, in an interview with The Daily Beast. “Guerrero currently has more criminal groups than any other region in Mexico, slightly over 20, fighting each other for control of drug production and distribution, especially heroin.”
More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-battlefield-bishop-taking-on-mexicos-most-bloodthirsty-cartels
Mexico’s State Guerrero Emerges as the United States’ Largest Heroin Supplier
By Ryan Beitler -January 18, 2018
Mexico’s southwestern state of Guerrero is now the largest heroin supplier to America, contributing to the opioid epidemic that resulted in 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016 alone.
Most of the overdose deaths were caused by heroin and synthetic opioids, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says 93 percent of heroin analyzed by the agency came from Mexico, which was more than double the amount five years prior.
The Mexican army is taking on a campaign to eradicate the poppy flowers, the plant that’s used to make heroin.
After Afghanistan and Myanmar, Mexico has the third-largest area of their country under poppy cultivation in the world, according to a United Nations report based on data from 2015. Poppy production in the country has grown more than three times the amount estimated in 2013, according to the DEA.
More:
https://www.drugaddictionnow.com/2018/01/18/mexico-emerges-as-the-united-states-largest-heroin-supplier/
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