MONTERREY, Nuevo León — A series of attacks on five bars in and around Monterrey left 12 individuals dead and six others injured. Law enforcement sources point to the Cartel Del Noreste faction of the cartel known as Los Zetas as having been behind the terrorist-style attacks.
The violence took place between Saturday night and Sunday morning when teams of gunmen began simultaneously arriving at multiple bars in the downtown part of Monterrey and surrounding areas. In a coordinated fashion, the cartel gunmen opened fire at the businesses and the people inside. Monterrey is a large industrial metropolitan area in the state of Nuevo Leon and is approximately 120 miles south of the Texas border. The region is considered by organized crime as a major transit area and in the past has been heavily contested.
The fiercest attack took place at the Rancho Viejo bar in the town of Juarez where the gunmen killed five men and a woman. The gunmen also injured another man. At about the same time, another team of gunmen attacked two bars called Jarritos and Ancla de Oro, in the downtown part of Monterrey. This shooting left three wounded victims. In the southeastern part of Monterrey, another team of gunmen killed one man and injured three others at a bar called Wicho’s. Gunmen killed two men and injured a third at a bar called El Bohemio near the town of Apodaca. And finally, another attack at a bar called La Mitotera killed two and injured a third person.
Law enforcement sources disclosed to Breitbart Texas that the attacks appear to be linked to a territorial dispute where CDN gunmen are trying to muscle various bars that had been paying protection fees to other organizations. The law enforcement source stated that a secondary part of the investigation points out that criminal organizations behind the bars are in fact independent groups not tied to cartels who pay protection to corrupt law enforcement officials.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León 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 Tony Aranda from Nuevo León.