The El Paso-Juárez Metropolitan Border Area registered 179 murders in June.
The 179 homicides eclipsed the total from the first three months of 2018 combined, according to local reports. Juárez experienced a recent escalation in cartel-related violence primarily attributed to a dispute between former allied criminal groups fighting over the valuable street-level drug market.
The level of killings in Juárez this past month are similar to those seen during the 2011 crisis when a fierce cartel war broke out for control of the El Paso corridor between the Juárez and Sinaloa Cartels. At the current time, Breitbart Texas law enforcement sources in Mexico attributed the current violence to the resurgence of the Juárez Cartel or “El Nuevo Cartel de Juárez” and a recent split of a key leader from Los Aztecas to La Línea.
Los Aztecas, also known as “Barrio Aztecas,” operate in both Mexico and Texas by performing hits for the Juarez Cartel in addition to extortion, kidnappings, and street-level drug sales. Los Aztecas are also in the midst of an internal conflict between the “Old School Aztecas” loyal to the recently captured FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Eduardo “Tablas” Ravelo. Arrested on June 26 in the central-western state of Michoacán, Ravelo is one of the original founding members of Los Aztecas. The other warring faction of Los Aztecas are loyal to recently captured Bruno Angel Rangel, aka “El Bruno” and Carlos Arturo Quintana, “El 80,” the leader of La Línea –who was also recently captured as one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.
The border state of Chihuahua registered 1,604 homicides this year with 50 percent of them committed in the northern zone of Juárez alone, according to the state attorney general’s office.
Homicides by Month in Juárez
January — 72
February — 44
March — 56
April — 65
May — 124
June — 179
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.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com
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