HomeNewsBrief23 Killed in West Mexico as Familia Rivals Battle
BRIEF

23 Killed in West Mexico as Familia Rivals Battle

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR / 20 JUN 2011 BY PATRICK CORCORAN EN

Twenty-three people were killed in the Mexican state of Michoacan in one weekend, as the split between different leaders of the Familia Michoacana continued to exact a bloody price.

The bodies were accompanied by notes from the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar), a Familia offshoot connected to Servando Gomez, alias "La Tuta." The notes accused the dead of supporting Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, alias "El Chango," who heads the portion of the group still calling itself the Familia.

The first nine bodies were discovered early Saturday morning in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas, which is a key territory for importing cocaine and methamphetamine precursor chemicals. Nine more bodies were later discovered at points in the state’s northern region, which borders the state of Jalisco.

The Knights Templar first announced their existence in March. The split between Mendez and Gomez is the result of the December killing of Familia boss Nazario Moreno, alias "El Chayo," whose presence helped keep the peace between the two.

Michoacan is valuable both as a trafficking route from the Pacific to Mexico City and the nation’s populous central region, as well as for the production of heroin and marijuana. The Familia have earned notoriety for their aggressive extortion of local businesses to supplement their income.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

GUATEMALA / 8 DEC 2021

A transnational labor trafficking network brought dozens of individuals from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico to the United States under the…

FENTANYL / 29 JUN 2023

The US government has brought its first-ever criminal charges against Chinese companies for allegedly trafficking precursor chemicals used to produce…

CONTRABAND / 8 JUN 2022

The Jalisco is allegedly powering the production of 12 percent of all Mexican-made illicit cigarettes, stepping up efforts across the…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…