Two New Gangs Behind Violence in Northeast Mexico, Security Official Says

MEXICO CITY – Two small gangs formed following the break-up of a drug cartel are behind the violence in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Mexican National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido on Tuesday.

The Ciclones and Metros gangs “are the ones clashing in the border region” with the United States, Rubido told Radio Formula.

One gang is based in Matamoros, located across the border from Brownsville, Texas, and the other operates out of Reynosa, across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas, Rubido said.

The gangs’ current power “cannot remotely be compared with the organizations’ capabilities when the leaders who are under arrest or neutralized were around,” the national security commissioner said.

“The 15 principal criminals who were sowing fear, who were attacking the citizens ... today 14 have been neutralized,” Rubido said, adding that 13 gang leaders were under arrest and one was dead.

Progress has been made in Tamaulipas in terms of security in the past year, but “we have still not turned” the situation around, Rubido said.

Tamaulipas “has 17 border crossings with the United States, three ports, five international airports,” making it the only Mexican state with that many airports, the national security commissioner said.

Last Thursday, marines arrested nine suspects in connection with a wave of violence in Tamaulipas that left a police officer dead.

Four other suspects, including the purported head of the gang, were arrested a day earlier.

Suspected members of the same unidentified gang responded to the four arrests by mounting roadblocks, burning vehicles and carrying out armed attacks against federal and state security forces, actions that left a police officer dead and two suspected gang members wounded.

Tamaulipas has been for years a battleground between the Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels, and it is regularly among the states with the highest numbers of homicides.

President Enrique Peña Nieto sent additional Federal Police and military personnel to Tamaulipas last May and ordered a thorough vetting of the state and municipal police forces to root out corrupt officers.