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.
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas — The violence brought to this city by two rival factions of the Los Zetas cartel was finally a reported by multiple news outlets throughout the state after a team of gunmen killed a popular union leader.
As Breitbart Texas previously reported two factions of the Los Zetas drug cartel have gone to war over this city and the surrounding territories. The fighting between Grupo Bravo/Vieja Escuela and Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) has resulted in an almost daily occurrence of shootouts, gruesome executions, and kidnappings that have terrorized this city. Most media outlets have turned a blind eye to the carnage by following a media strategy dictated by the government where they only highlight the positive side of the state.
On Thursday, shortly after noon, Jose Angel Morales Medina, the leader of a powerful labor union in the state was getting off his vehicle outside of his house when some gunmen ridding in motorcycles pulled up and fired killing him almost instantly. Authorities have remained largely silent on the murder not commenting if there are ties to organized crime or if the murder was political in nature.
Medina was the state leader of the Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM) is one of the largest labor unions in Mexico with a long history of ties to the ruling party the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI).
One event that was not reported by Mexican news outlets dealt with the rolling gun battle that left two police officers injured and resulted in the arrest of two gunmen.
That gun battle took place on Wednesday afternoon when police officers with Fuerza Tamaulipas had been patrolling the city and tried to pull over a Volkswagen Bora. From inside the vehicle, a team of gunmen fired at the police officers as they tried to flee.
The high speed pursuit ran along one of the main boulevards called Adolfo Mateos. Near the intersection with 16th Street, one of the police pickup trucks crashed into a light pole resulting in two officers being injured.
Further down the boulevard, between 22nd and 23rd streets, the gunmen crashed into a metal fence. One of the gunmen had been injured during the rolling shootout and stayed inside, while two others dropped their weapons and tried to run away. Authorities carried out a search operation and caught up with one of them.
On Thursday, a group of Mexican Federal Police officers had been eating at a restaurant called El Mezquite just north of Ciudad Victoria, when a team of gunmen shot at their police vehicles.
The shooting at the police vehicles come almost immediately after a series of Facebook posts signed by the faction known as Grupo Bravo began popping up trying to recruit new gunmen and lookouts for one of the Los Zetas factions. In the ad, the criminal group offered about $650 or 12,000 pesos per two week pay period for gunmen and about $280 or $5,000 for cartel lookouts.
The messages warn a Mexican Federal named Captain Zavala about staying out of the fight between Grupo Bravo and CDN. The message accuses Zavala of taking bribes in order to turn a blind eye to the smuggling of Central Americans as well as liquor and illegally imported electronics.