That followed the cancellation of a concert in October by well-known narco corrido singer Peso Pluma. “If they come to sing other kinds of songs, they are welcome,” said Mayor Montserrat Caballero, threatening those who performed the ballads with fines of up to $57,000. 20, the Tijuana city council voted to ban performances of drug ballads known as “narco corridos,” which glorify traffickers. In January 2022, two journalists were shot to death in two separate attacks in one week. Observers say turf battles between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, and other groups - like remnants of the old Arellano Felix gang - are largely to blame.Īnd so pervasive is the violence in Tijuana that anyone, from singers to journalists, can fall victim to the killings. The roots of Tijuana's current round of violence date back to 2017, when murders practically doubled, rising from 919 in 2016 to 1,782 in 2017. “Tijuana has never seen anything of this scale and that's saying a lot.” But police stealing a cartel's whole drug shipment is a new low. When he took over the police department, Capella recalls, he had to fire about a quarter of the force's officers and he survived an assassination attempt. Tijuana is no stranger to violence or corruption. The employee said the second officer declined an offer for a spot in the state witness protection program in return for testifying in the case.Ĭapella, the former police chief, said at least three other police officers have been killed since the heist, suggesting the cartel may have launched a generalized retribution for the theft. The attackers fled on a motorcycle.Īn employee of the state prosecutors' office - who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk publicly about the case - confirmed this week that two of the officers under investigation in the scandal had been shot and killed in broad daylight on the city’s streets, in apparent gangland revenge. It seemed the officer saw the attack coming, and was able to start his car and advance a few feet before hitting a column and collapsing dead at the wheel. 27, a state detective under investigation for the theft was gunned down in his car while filling it with gas at a station in Tijuana. 24, gunmen targeted the state prosecutors’ office with a barrage of gunfire nobody was injured. Within an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the heist was gunned down on a street in Tijuana. 18, just hours after the theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors’ office in Tijuana with at least 30 rounds, pockmarking the building’s façade. State Prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade confirmed this week that three state detectives were under investigation in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police.Īlberto Capella, the former head of Tijuana's police force from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told The Associated Press that the cache of drugs appeared to have belonged to the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the wing controlled by drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, probably the most powerful gang in town.Īpparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who had pulled off the heist. Video emerged last week of the officers' pickup truck pulling out of the building with big, plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the truck bed. According to prosecutors, in mid-November, a half-dozen local and state police officers in Tijuana allegedly hatched a plot to steal a large shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers were storing it.
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