The dispute between the Sinaloa cartel and the CJNG increased murders in Zacatecas by 50%

In the last two years, there has been an alarming increase in homicides in Zacatecas, an entity with a strategic location that has made it a highly sought-after area for drug distribution and chemical precursor transfer from the Pacific to the Gulf and from nearby areas to the United States. The state is contested by the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel.

This situation has led to more than 1,000 reports of missing persons being filed for several years and the number of intentional homicides in the state to increase.

According to figures from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), Zacatecas registered an increase of nearly 50 percent in the number of intentional homicide cases in 2020 compared to the records from 2017 to 2019.

In 2017, the SSPC registered 551 cases of intentional homicide, up from 561 in 2018 and 510 in 2019. In 2020, however, the number has risen to 789 deliberate murders. In addition, while the average number of intentional murder cases was 42 cases in the months of January 2017 to 2020, the SESNSP reported for the first month of this year 108 violent deaths.

The dispute over control of the entity is believed to have started in 2018 when cells of the CJNG, commanded by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes alias The Mencho, they broke through in the areas known as the Jalpa and Tlaltenango Gorges, located on the border with Jalisco. The first clashes took place with the Los Zetas and del Golfo groups operating in the state.

The first phase of the plan for the CJNG’s invasion of Zacatecas state involved landing in low-income communities in the south of the state, to create a security perimeter that would allow the arrival of more contingents.

Once total control of those places was obtained, with a sufficient number of elements and sufficient firepower, the offensive advance and the expansion of the cartel would begin to more municipalities in the center and north of Zacatecas, whose areas are under the influence of the cartel. . del Northeast and Sinaloa, respectively.

State security reports indicate that the first cartel to establish with great power in Zacatecas was Los Zetas – now converted into the Northeast Cartel (CDN).

The CDN has its operations in Tamaulipas (in northern Mexico). In the Zacatecan area, they settle with their fork called Los Talibanes, which have lost ground in Zacatecas, especially as in 2019 cells of the Sinaloa Cartel they were introduced in the municipalities of Sombrerete, Miguel Auza and Juan Aldama.

Zacatecas kicked off the year with a spate of violence that took the lives of 161 people in January, a figure that was not seen because there are public records of intentional murder victims and placed as a point compared to all the monthly reports released since 2015 have been released. The entity jumped to the top of the list nationwide, with the highest number of cases based on population size.

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