Cartel violence in Tijuana continues with no end in sight as 11 killings were registered in a 24-hour period earlier this week. The deaths brought the number of homicides to 650 in 2018, according to government statistics as reported by local media. Authorities reported more than 100 homicides during the month of April.
Breitbart Texas previously reported that according to the attorney general’s office of Baja California, most homicides are going unsolved. This has contributed substantially to the current drug cartel violence. Of 132 registered homicides to start 2018, only five resulted in arrests with a total of 11 suspects detained.
This week’s violence began during the early morning hours of Monday, April 16 in the colonia Reforma neighborhood, local news outlets reported. Officials discovered the decapitated corpse of an unknown male, 30-35 years of age.
Later that day, at 11 am, police located the body of a 40-45-year male with gunshot wounds in the Hacienda Las Delicias Tercera Sección. At around 2 pm, in colonia El Lago neighborhood, officials located the body of a 41-year-old female who sustained numerous knife-type stab wounds.
Several hours later, a 25-30-year-old male died after being shot in a vacant lot in colonia Los Venados neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, officials discovered the decomposing corpse of an unidentified female in the colonia San Ángel neighborhood. Several minutes later, police found the body of a 35-year-old male in the colonia García neighborhood with gunshot wounds.
While investigators were at the earlier colonia García location, officers located the bullet-ridden body of a 40-year-old male inside a residence in the colonia Planicie neighborhood.
At approximately 10 pm in the colonia Cumbres de Juárez neighborhood, officials found the body of a 57-year-old male who also died from gunshot wounds.
At 1 a.m. on the morning of April 17, police found the body of a 35-40-year-old male who had been killed by gunfire near la Zona Centro.
And finally, at 7 am, law enforcement officials located the bodies of an unidentified male and female in the la colonia División del Norte — both died from multiple gunshot wounds.
The city of Tijuana sits on the U.S. border with California, approximately 17 miles south of San Diego. The cartel violence in the city has been attributed to a resurgence of remnants from the Cártel de Los Arellano Félix, which is now operating under the name of Cártel Tijuana Nueva Generación (CTNG). The group aligns itself with El Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.
These two criminal groups are engaged in a turf dispute with the Sinaloa Cartel. In some areas, rival factions within the Sinaloa Cartel are fighting for control of the lucrative street-level markets and valuable routes leading into the United States. Those involved in the killings are primarily low-level street dealers, lookouts, customers and enforcers for these individual criminal gangs. Many of these street-level dealers are targets of rip-crews looking for cash and drugs.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.)