Cartel Violence, Corruption the Focus of Gubernatorial Race in Mexican Border State

Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas and Coahuila to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “M.A.” Navarro from Ciudad Victoria and Breitbart Texas’ Ildefonso Ortiz.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas — As the border state of Tamaulipas prepares for their upcoming gubernatorial election, candidates have begun to trade jabs about the out of control cartel violence and the rampant corruption that has had a historic hold in this region.

As candidates begin to host campaign rallies and debates promising a better tomorrow, residents in cities like Ciudad Victoria, Matamoros, Reynosa and Laredo are still concerned about the regular occurrences of drug cartel violence including shootouts, beheadings, dismemberments, executions, kidnappings and large scale gun battles that continue to spread terror among the already tired residents. 

Ciudad Victoria, the city where just last week the gubernatorial candidates held their first debate, has been become a battle ground for two factions of the Los Zetas cartel that continue to fight over territories. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, the civil war raging within the Los Zetas cartel has spread terror to the region where citizens are no longer able to go out at night for fear of being caught up in the middle of a shootout.

During the debate, which was not televised but only shown online, the candidates traded attacks and accused each other of corruption and ties to organized crime. The ruling party Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is facing an uphill battle in distancing themselves from cartel corruption. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, the two most recent former governors of Tamaulipas and a former mayor from the border city of Matamoros  are currently fugitives of the U.S. Department of Justice. They are wanted on money laundering charges in connection with bribery and ties to organized crime. Some of the fugitives have been making public appearances supporting their political party. Several other Tamaulipas officials have been linked in U.S. courts to public corruption while other have been openly unmasked as having been operators for the Gulf Cartel or Los Zetas.

This month, Ciudad Victoria saw a series of executions in city streets including five individuals being murdered at an apartment used by members of one cartel faction. In that executions, two men, two women and an underage teen were all gunned down.  Multiple other executions and a large gun battle outside of a government building only helped cause even more terror.