A recent wave of murders in Tijuana, Mexico’s border city with the United States, seems straight out of a television script: enraged drug traffickers chasing corrupt police officers who stole a shipment of drugs.
Two officers suspected of the robbery were killed, but so were at least three others, according to a former city police chief, suggesting that the cartel that owned the stolen drugs launched widespread retaliation.
This is the latest blow for Tijuana, the city with the most homicides in Mexico, almost double that of the second place: the also border City Juárez.
Tijuana, located in Baja California and with a population of more than 2.1 million, has long had about 2,000 murders per year. By comparison, Houston, Texas, which has roughly the same population, recorded 435 homicides in 2022.
According to prosecutors, in November a half-dozen Tijuana and state police officers stole a shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers stored them.
Last week, video surfaced of officers’ van leaving the warehouse with large plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the bed of the van.
María Elena Andrade, state prosecutor, confirmed this week that three state detectives are being investigated in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police officers.
Alberto Capella, former Tijuana police chief from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told The Associated Press that the drugs apparently belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel, the wing controlled by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, probably the group most powerful drug trafficker in the city. Apparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who carried out the heist.
On November 18, a few hours after the robbery, gunmen shot up the federal prosecutor’s office in Tijuana. After an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the robbery was shot to death in a street.
Then, on November 24, gunmen attacked the state prosecutor’s office with a volley of gunfire; no one was injured.
On Nov. 27, a state detective investigated for the robbery was shot to death in his car while pumping gas in Tijuana.
They also shot and killed two other agents in broad daylight on the city streets, in apparent revenge for organized crime.
Capella, the former police chief, said at least three other officers have died since the heist, suggesting the cartel launched widespread retaliation for the robbery.
TYT Newsroom
