The Gathering Storm: Could Hidalgo Become Mexicos Next Major Killing Field?

By Redlogarythm 6/12/2023 05:33:00 PM
Redlogarythm for Borderland Beat


The recent months haven´t been too calm in the central State of Hidalgo. In the last three months at least four tunnels used for stealing oil and gas from PEMEX´s pipelines have been discovered all along with an incredible network of infrastructure devoted to the extraction, transportation and distribution of ill-gotten combustibles by very well organized criminal groups.

As Borderland Beat revealed in a recent article [read it here] Hidalgo has been purported as a calmed oasis in the middle of the Mexican criminal maremagnum. Despite a tradition of deep penetration by organized crime and a long history of serious criminal organizations -among them the original Los Zetas- working in the State, Hidalgo doesn´t present traces of serious organized criminal presence. At least this was the State´s Public Security Secretary -the recently elected Salvador Cruz Neri- said when in September 2022 he assured journalists that despite some violence created by small groups and bands there was "no organized criminal presence identified as of yet".

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Salvador Cruz Neri, Hidalgo´s current Public Security Secretary. Once a heavy hitter in the now defunct Policía Federal at a time when he was accused of sexual assault, Cruz Neri has been a staunch supporter of the idea that there is no organized crime in the State.

The still young MORENA executive led by Governor Julio Menchaca Salazar -who swore charge on September 5th 2022- has tried to take advantage of Hidalgo´s acceptable public security rates which place the State as the fifth most secure federal entity in 2022 according to the Institute for Economics and Peace´s Mexico´s Peace Index for the year 2022 only after Yucatán, Tlaxcala, Chiapas and Campeche. Last year closed with "only" 330 homicides and although the rate increased by 14.98% in comparison with 2021 -a year in which 287 homicides were reported- it must be acknowledged that the numbers are lower than those of 2019, when violence reached its peaked with 479 homicides. Nevertheless several organizations and think tanks focused on public security -among them Insight Crime- have reflected their concern regarding an upsurge of violence in the State.

This and other facts have led Menchaca´s Federal Government to reiterate the old mantra of the State being free of serious organized criminal presence. In a recent statement Hidalgo´s Public Security Secretary Salvador Cruz Neri repeated that despite some "isolated cells" the State authorities had no knowledge of "organized crime".

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In this sense there have been at least three narco banners left by Los Zetas Vieja Escuela, a criminal organization working in the Huasteca region which apparently have been managing operations in the State capital, Pahuca. The authorship of such banners -which were produced almost on a monthly basis between January and March 2019- has never been discussed and interestingly enough one of the banners displayed very specific accusations against Pachuca´s State Penitentiary director who was blamed of directing drug trafficking operations from inside the gaol.

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In a very interesting turn of events, in the midst of the judicial process against those linked to the Jet Set massacre -which is taking place right now, in May 2023- it was revealed that one of the weapons linked to the massacre and found on October 11th in the hands of the alleged Familia Michoacana members was an M-16 A4 with serial number 20009871 property of the US Government -and indicator that it had been manufactured for its use by US Armed Forces- had been linked to at least 22 murders in the area. The impact provoked by this finding made even AMLO announce that the assault rifle would be investigated in order to find further details.

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The current state of affairs in Hidalgo -a rampant criminal economy based on intensive oil theft operations, the increasing presence of assault and military grade weapons, the evolution of criminal groups from family-based cells into multidisciplinary far developed organizations, the proliferation of a popular drug retailing market, the already existing presence of foreign powerful criminal syndicates and the absence of a common and logical public security policy- should make us think about similar cases of the past in which the absence of measures being adopted at the right time has transformed once relatively peaceful States into the slaughterhouses of the new decade.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2023/06/the-gathering-storm-could-hidalgo.html