HomeNewsBriefBorder State Chihuahua No Longer Leads Mexico Drug Killings
BRIEF

Border State Chihuahua No Longer Leads Mexico Drug Killings

MEXICO / 1 OCT 2012 BY HANNAH STONE EN

The southern Mexican state of Guerrero had the country’s highest number of murders linked to organized crime last month, knocking border state Chihuahua off the top spot for the first time in more than four years.

Guerrero saw 159 killings related to organized crime in September, according to Milenio’s count, compared to 149 in Chihuahua.

Chihuahua had ranked first in drug killings since May 2008, according to the newspaper, and September was the least violent month the state has seen since that year.

InSight Crime Analysis

Guerrero's rise to head the list of organized crime-related killings is part of a nationwide shift in the patterns of drug violence, with murders dropping in traditional hotspots, like along the US border, and becoming dispersed more widely across the country.

Chihuahua has been the epicenter of Mexico’s drug conflict in recent years, with border city Juarez the most violent place in the country, as the Sinaloa Cartel fought the Juarez Cartel for control. It has seen a dramatic fall in killings from more than 3,000 murders in 2010, to less than 700 in the first six months of this year. The security improvement has come amid ambitious government social programs, and the consolidation of power on the part of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Guerrero, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction. For over a decade before 2010, it saw an average of just over 1,000 murders per year, which doubled to over 2,100 killings in 2011.

The handover from Chihuahua to Guerrero also illustrates the rise across Mexico of small, localized gangs which have split off from the big cartels as their leaders are captured or killed.

Guerrero is disputed by a several of these splinter groups, including the Guerreros Unidos, a relatively recent arrival which has been blamed for a number of mass killings in the state. The criminal career of its leader, Cleotilde Toribio Renteria alias “El Tilde,” who was captured in July, is representative of the process of splintering of the big cartels, as InSight Crime has reported. He worked for “La Barbie” of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), but when La Barbie was captured he moved over to the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, and then La Barredora, before forming the Guerreros Unidos.

However, Guerrero could be in line for a security improvement. In October 2011 the government launched Operation Safe Guerrero, which follows similar lines as Todos Somos Juarez, one of the programs credited with Juarez's relative peace.

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.

Tags

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

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…

CHINA AND CRIME / 14 APR 2022

The full threat posed to Mexico's biodiversity by both Mexican and Chinese organized crime networks has been revealed in a…

GUATEMALA / 8 DEC 2021

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

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…