Several vehicles seized during a day of shootouts revealed that the fearsome narco-terrorist Cartel Jalisco New Generation appears to be operating in the border state of Tamaulipas. The deadly cartel is allegedly working in an alliance of sorts with one faction of the Gulf Cartel.
The violence took place early Friday morning near the city of Jimenez as cartel gunmen clashed with a group of rivals. As many as 15 armored SUVs are believed to have been used by each side.
Unlike other shootouts, the clash in Jimenez revealed the presence of Cartel Jalisco New Generation in the central part of Tamaulipas as various vehicles, including armored SUVs, had the letters CJNG painted on their sides. CJNG is one of Mexico’s most sadistic criminal organizations and is tied to the use of car bombs, IEDs, grenade attacks, and the shooting of innocent victims as a way to rule by fear.
While state authorities have only released minimal details on the incident, law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that the clash took place on the outskirts of Jimenez. There, rival gunmen clashed in a rolling shootout that moved along the highway that connects Ciudad Victoria and San Fernando. During that clash, a group of gunmen pulled up to a highway station of the Tamaulipas State Guard (Police) and left. Once the fighting ended, Tamaulipas police officers took to the streets and found some crashed vehicles with three dead gunmen.
The violence comes as Tamaulipas as officials found more than 23 dead gunmen in a span of two weeks as rival drug cartels fight for drug trafficking territories.
In Tamaulipas, the two main factions of the Gulf Cartel, the Metros from Reynosa and the Escorpiones/Ciclones from Matamoros have each established business alliances with CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel respectively. Both cartels would move their products through Gulf Cartel territories but have kept their gunmen out of the Tamaulipas until recently.
As Breitbart Texas reported exclusively, CJNG began making incursions in the southern part of Tamaulipas in August 2022 when they entered from the State of San Luis Potosi. The cartel began carrying out attacks in the city of Tula. Since then, there were no new attacks attributed to CJNG until this week.
Gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel have not yet made their presence known in Tamaulipas. However, in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, they have been clashing with the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas as well as with independent drug dealers. Currently, the Sinaloa Cartel is listed as the one responsible for most of the murders and kidnappings in Nuevo Leon.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
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