The war against drug cartels in Mexico has been going on for more than a year, claiming many human lives every day.
(Total 26 photos)
1. Doctors and nurses during a protest against violence in the Mexican town of Suidad December 7. On December 2, traumatologist and orthopedist Dr. Alberto Betancourt Rosales was abducted and his corpse was found two days later. (Dario Lopez Mills / AP)
2. A police girl at a car abandoned by attackers suspected of killing two of their fellow officers in the city on December 6. One police officer was killed in the shootout. (Dario Lopez Mills / AP)
3. The bodies of three young men killed by armed criminals, in the back of a pickup truck in the city of Acapulco on December 5. During the first weekend of December, 11 people were killed in drug wars. (Bernandino Hernandez / AP)
4. A soldier accompanies Edgar Jimenez Lugu, nicknamed "El Ponchis", during his presentation to the press in Cuernavaca on December 3. Soldiers arrested a 14-year-old drug cartel gang leader as he tried to cross to the US. Jimenez, by the way, a US citizen, is suspected of participating in a drug cartel in the state of Morelos, consisting of several teenagers who brutally killed their competitors. (Margarito Perez / Reuters)
5. Members of the forensic team work on a mass grave in Palomas, Chihuahua, on the other side of Big Bend National Park in Texas. Investigators recovered 18 bodies from 11 graves. (Reuters)
6. The Mexican Federal Police escorts 32-year-old Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, the leader of the Aztec drug gang. The gang is suspected of several murders, and Gallegos is credited with killing 15 young people in January of this year during a party in Ciudad Juarez, as well as the murder of a US consular worker in March. (Marco Ugarte/AP)
7. A Mexican soldier squats in a tunnel found under the US-Mexico border in Tijuana. American border guards found a small tunnel under the Mexican-American border and confiscated a significant amount of marijuana from a warehouse in San Diego. About 30 tons of marijuana passed through this tunnel, 548 meters long and equipped with a guide system, lighting and ventilation. (Jorge Duenes/Reuters)
8. A medical examiner sticks "Damaged" stickers on a car window at a crime scene in Guadalajara November 22. According to local media, the three men in the car were killed by unknown perpetrators. (Alejandro Acosta/Reuters)
9. Christians pray for peace at Macroplaza in downtown Monterrey November 13. More than 30,000 people have died in drug dealing since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched his determined campaign against the cartels. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)
10. Eight-year-old Galia Rodriguez - the daughter of reporter Armando Rodriguez, who died in Ciudad Juarez - came to the anniversary of his death in a journalistic park on November 13. Earlier this year, Rodriguez, who worked for El Diario de Ciudad Juarez, was shot and killed by unknown drug dealers. (Gael Gonzalez/Reuters)
11. A man walks past a poster hung by members of the Zetas gang on a footbridge in Monterrey. Zetas criminals posted messages between trees and over bridges in Reynos and other towns across the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, celebrating the death of Gulf Cartel gang leader Ezekel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas, who was shot dead by Marines the day before. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)
12. A medical examiner inspects a car with the body of bodyguard Carlos Reis Almaguer on the outskirts of Monterrey November 4. The bodyguard of the mayor of the municipality of San Pedro Garza Garcia Mauricio Fernandez was shot by unknown assailants. (Carlos Jasso / AP)
13. Relatives and friends at the funeral of a drug war victim killed during a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez. (Gael Gonzalez/Reuters)
14. People clean the bloodied courtyard of a house in Ciudad Juarez. 13 people died and 15 were injured during the attack on this house at a party in honor of the 15th birthday of a teenager. (Raymundo Ruiz / AP)
15. Morgue workers put coffins in graves at the San Rafael cemetery on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. The bodies of 21 men and four women killed in the drug wars were buried in the city morgue for several months after their relatives did not come for them. (Gael Gonzalez/Reuters)
16. Confiscated weapons of members of the Zetas gang, found in a horse trailer, including rifles with reinforced cartridges, grenades and various ammunition. As a result, two people were arrested. (Miguel Tovar / AP)
17. Soldiers unload 134 tons of marijuana, intended for burning, at the Morelos military base in Tijuana. Soldiers had confiscated the drugs earlier that week during a raid. Heavily armed soldiers raided several houses in a poor area of Tijuana. As a result, 11 people were arrested and the drugs were burned. (Jorge Duenes/Reuters)
18. People gathered around the figure of a peace dove made of candles in the courtyard of the Autonomous University of Nuevo eon during a protest against violence and in memory of the murdered student Lucila Quintanilla in Monterrey. Once this one of the richest Mexican cities was an oasis of peace and tranquility, but now it has become a battlefield for the bloody showdowns of drug dealers. (Edgar Montelongo/Reuters)
19. The medical examiner looks at a package with a human head and a message in Tijuana. (Alejandro Cossio/AP)
20. Mexican police are working next to the dead body in Ciudad Juarez. Since the government declared war on drug cartels in late 2006, 30,000 people have died. (Jesus Alcazar / AFP - Getty Images)
21. Bound bodies of 72 migrant workers at a ranch in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. The Marines found the bodies after several shootouts with drug dealers. (Tamaulipas "State Attorney General" s Office via Reuters)
22. Residents came to the funeral of the mayor of the tourist town of Santiago Edelmiro Cavazos in the city center. Drug traffickers have killed 17 mayors in Mexico since early 2008. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)
23. Gold pistol with engraving and diamonds at the Drug Museum in Mexico City on August 18. This unique museum features golden weapons, children's clothing with LSD stickers, and religious paintings of cocaine. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP - Getty Images)
24. The grandmother of the murdered policeman José Ramirez cries over his body in the Acapulco area of Las Joyaia on July 17. The attack also killed three of Ramirez's comrades. (Bernardino Hernandez / AP)
25. Protective film at a crime scene in Ciudad Juarez on January 31. Armed criminals broke into a birthday party, killing 13 people - mostly teenagers. (Alejandro Bringas/Reuters)
26. Police officers work at the scene of a terrorist attack on the main road in the center of Ciudad Juarez on July 16. The perpetrators blew up a car near three patrol cars, killing two police officers and injuring 12 others. Another grenade exploded as medics and journalists arrived at the crime scene, seriously injuring one person. (Jesus Alcazar / AFP - Getty Images)
The drug mafia in Mexico is getting stronger. Although total number murders in the country for the past two decades has been steadily declining, drug dealers are committing heinous crimes. They have undermined the rule of law so much that ordinary Mexicans are now and then publicly interested: did the mafias win the war against the state?
The history of modern Mexican drug traffickers begins in the 1940s, when farmers from the mountain villages of the Mexican state of Sinaloa began to grow marijuana. The first Mexican drug traffickers were a bunch of villagers connected by family ties. For the most part, they were from the small northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. Sandwiched between the Gulf of California and the Sierra Madre, about 300 miles from the US border, this poor, agrarian state has become an ideal place for smuggling. At first, marijuana was grown here or bought from other "gardeners" of the Pacific coast, and then the drug was shipped to the United States. For decades, it remained a stable and not too risky small business, and violence did not spill out beyond the narrow world of drug dealers. Later, cocaine, which came into vogue in the 60s, was added to marijuana smuggling. However, for a long time, the Mexicans were just “donkeys” serving one of the supply channels for Colombian cocaine in North America. And they did not even dare to compete with the powerful Colombians.
The heyday of Mexican drug gangs began after the defeat of the Colombian drug cartels of Cali and Medellin by the US and Colombian governments. One by one, El Mexicoano and Pablo Emilio Escabar were killed, the brothers Ochoa and Carlos Leder (El Aleman) from the Medellin cartel were imprisoned in Colombian and US prisons. Following them, it was the turn of the Kali cartel, led by the Orihuela brothers.
Also, after the Americans closed the supply chain of Colombian drugs through Florida, the Mexican delivery route became virtually uncontested. The weakened Colombians could no longer dictate their will to the Mexicans and now only sell them large quantities of drugs at wholesale prices.
As a result, Mexican gangs gained control over the entire chain of drug trafficking - from raw material plantations in the Andes region to points of sale on American streets. They managed to significantly expand the scale of the business: from 2000 to 2005, the supply of cocaine from South America to Mexico more than doubled, and the amount of amphetamine intercepted at the US-Mexico border alone more than quintupled.
The United States, largely due to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Mexican drug cartels, ranks first in the world in terms of cocaine and marijuana consumption. And the drug cartels themselves began to earn from 25 to 40 billion dollars a year on the American market. In general, Mexico produces about 10,000 tons of marijuana and 8,000 tons of heroin annually. Almost 30% of cultivated farmland in the country is planted with marijuana. In addition, almost 90% of the cocaine consumed in the United States comes through Mexico. Most of the methamphetamine consumed in the United States is produced in Mexican laboratories (although there used to be a lot of meth - four times more pseudoephedrine was imported into the country than required for the pharmaceutical industry, and now the focus is on marijuana, which provides almost 70% of the cartel's income). All this is sold through controlled outlets, which the Mexican drug cartels have in at least 230 major American cities.
However, this expansion of business also affected relations between the leading Mexican cartels. A multiple increase in the supply of cocaine and marijuana with a fixed number of plazas (transshipment points at the border) and the number of drug addicts in the States has led to a sharp increase in inter-cartel competition for the American market. It's time for big money. And big money, as you know, brings big problems. This is how drug wars began in Mexico, because “if there are standard legal ways of competition in legal business, then in illegal, most effective method bypass a competitor - kill him.
At first, families dispersed from Sinaloa began to vie for control of the main border transit points. Accordingly, the very structure of the cartels has undergone a change. If in the old days, the drug mafia was a sort of guy with a gold tooth and a Colt .45, now everything is completely different. Now there are whole groups of militants trained in a military way. To fight each other, the cartels began to create private armies consisting of mercenaries - sicarios. These mercenaries are armed with the latest technology and often surpass even part of the Mexican army in technical equipment and level of training. The most famous and violent of these groups is the Los Zetas. Its core is former Mexican special forces from the GAFE (Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales) unit. Modeled after Los Zetas, their competitor, the Sinaloa cartel, created its own army called Los Negros. There was no shortage of recruits: the cartels openly posted advertisements in the towns bordering the United States, inviting former and current military men to join their organizations. Cartel vacancies have become one of the reasons for the mass desertion and dismissal from the Mexican army (from 2000 to 2006 - 100 thousand people).
The first major war between rival drug cartels began with the arrest in 1989 of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, founding father of the cocaine business in Mexico, friend of José Rodríguez Gacha (El Mexicano). This contributed to the fragmentation of his group and the founding of the first two large drug cartels - Sinaloa and Tijuana. Then fuel was added to the fire by the unexpected appearance of a group that had nothing to do with Sinaloa. They were drug dealers, calling themselves the "Cartel del Golfo", from the state of Tamaulipas on the coast Gulf of Mexico. The natives of Sinaloa were divided: some were for new players, some were against. When the cartel formation in Mexico was completed, they split into two parts: one group consists of the Juárez Cartel, Los Zetas, the Tijuana Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel. Beltran Leyva Cartel” (“Beltrán Leyva Cartel”), and the second group from the “Golfo Cartel” (“Cartel del Golfol”), “Sinaloa Cartel” (“Sinaloa Cartel”) and “Family Cartel” (“Cartel La Familial”) . Later, two more were formed - the Oaxaca Cartel and Los Negros.
And ordinary Mexicans, clearly demonstrated a new way of waging drug wars, a group of men in black went to a roadside disco in the state of Michoacán and shook out the contents of a garbage bag - five severed heads. Has come new era Mexican drug business, when violence became the means of communication. Today, members of the drug mafia monstrously disfigure the bodies of their victims and put them on public display - so that everyone is aware of the power of the drug lords and feared them. You Tube has become a propaganda platform for the drug war, where anonymous companies upload videos and drug ballads that extol the advantages of one cartel leader over another.
The United States, as you know, is not only the main market for drugs, but also the source of weapons involved in the dismantling of drug cartels in Mexico. Almost anyone with a driver's license and no criminal record can buy weapons here. There are 110,000 sellers with licenses to sell, 6,600 of which are located between Texas and San Diego. Therefore, for the purchase itself, Mexicans usually use dummy Americans - "straw people" (mostly single mothers who do not arouse suspicion), who receive 50-100 dollars for the service. These front men buy guns by the piece, either from stores or from "gun shows" that take place every weekend in Arizona, Texas, or California. Then the barrels are handed over to dealers, who, collecting a batch of several dozen, transport it across the border. And they make good money doing it. For example, a used AK-47 can be bought in the States for $400, and south of the Rio Grande it will already cost $1,500. Armed in this way, drug cartel armies have mortars, heavy machine guns, anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, fragmentation grenades.
The Mexican border guards themselves cannot stop the arms traffic. Or rather, they don't want to. Mexicans are not very active in searching cars entering their territory from the north, this passivity is explained by the fact that the border guards are faced with the choice of “plata o plomo” (silver or lead). Many prefer to take bribes and turn a blind eye to smuggling. Those who refuse "silver" usually do not live long. For example, in February 2007, an honest Mexican border guard stopped a truck full of weapons. As a result, the Gulf Cartel missed 18 rifles, 17 pistols, 17 grenades, and more than 8,000 rounds of ammunition. The next day, the border guard was shot dead.
Until 2006, periodic mafia showdowns had practically no effect on ordinary Mexicans. The cartels were doing big business, and big business requires a quiet environment. Drug gangs have even become an everyday element in the lives of citizens. Simple people, seeing the success of drug dealers (especially against the backdrop of total poverty in the country), they began to compose “drug ballads” about them. Since Mexico is a very religious country, the cartels even have their own "drug saint" - Jesus Malverde, whose central temple is installed in the capital of the state of Sinaloa, the city of Kualican, and "drug saint" - Doña Santa Muerte.
There was no large-scale violence in the country. With the Mexican President Vicente Fox, the cartels interacted according to the formula “Live yourself and do not disturb others”. Everyone controlled their territory and did not climb into someone else's. Everything changed with the victory in the 2006 presidential election, Felipe Calderon. Immediately after his election, the new head of state declared war on drug cartels. The president took such a radical step for two reasons. First, he needed to start some kind of popular campaign to strengthen his position after the mixed election results (Calderón's lead over his closest rival, Andreas Manuel López Obrador, was less than 0.6%). Of the two potential popular directions - the war on crime and the beginning of deep economic reforms - he chose the first as, in his opinion, the easiest. Secondly, the new president realized the danger of the coexistence of cartels and the state. Calderón realized that further “see nothing, hear nothing” tactics against the drug cartels would inevitably lead to a weakening of the government. Every year the bandits penetrated deeper and deeper into state institutions especially to the police.
By the time Calderón arrived, the entire police force in the northern states of Mexico had been bought by the cartels. At the same time, law enforcement officers did not fear for their future if their ties with bandits were revealed. If a local police officer is fired for corruption, he simply crosses the street and is hired by the cartel (for example, in Rio Bravo, the recruiting office of Los Zetas was located directly opposite the police station). Former police officers know the principles of police work from the inside, and they were taken with joy. That is why the authority of the police in the country was very low.
As a result of an active campaign, Calderon managed to inflict some damage on the drug mafia. In 2007-2008, 70 tons of cocaine, 370 tons of marijuana, 28,000 barrels, 2,000 grenades, 3 million rounds of ammunition and $304 million were seized from the cartels. In the US, this has translated into numbers: cocaine prices soared 1.5 times, while the average purity fell from 67.8% to 56.7%, and the cost of amphetamine on American streets rose by 73%.
After the violation of the unspoken truce by the new president, the drug cartels declared a vendetta against the government and law enforcement agencies and are waging it with their inherent cruelty and intransigence (for the sake of this, two sworn enemies, the Gulf Cartels and Sinaloa, even reconciled for a while). Those who did not run away and did not sell out are mercilessly shot. Briefly, the chronicle of the most significant victories and losses looks like this:
In January 2008, in the city of Culiacan, one of the leaders of the cartel of the same name, Alfredo Beltran Leyva (nicknamed El Mochomo), was arrested. His brothers, in revenge for his arrest, orchestrated the assassination of Federal Police Commissioner Edgar Eusebio Millano Gomez and other high-ranking officials in the Mexican capital itself.
That same January, members of the Juarez Cartel pinned to the door of Juarez City Hall a list of 17 police officers who had been sentenced to death. By September, ten of them had been killed.
On October 25, in the prestigious area of Fraksionamiento Pedregal, Tijuana, the troops and police stormed the villa located here, arresting the leader of the Tijuana cartel Eduardo Arellano Felix (nickname "Doctor"), after which the leadership in the cartel passed to his nephew - Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano.
However, after the arrest of Eduardo Arellano Felix, one of the leaders of the drug cartel, Teodoro Garcia Simmental (nicknamed "El Teo") left the group and started a war against its new leader, as a result of which Tijuana was swept by a wave of violence that claimed from 300 to almost 700 people, according to various sources. . Within a year, rivals fought for control of a road through Nogales, Sonora, and the city's homicide rate tripled.
In November, under strange circumstances, the plane of Juan Camilo Mourino, the President's national security adviser, crashed.
And in early February 2009, one of the most popular Mexican military, retired General Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones, was kidnapped, tortured and killed. Less than 24 hours before his kidnapping, he took up the post of security adviser to the mayor's office of Cancun - a resort town, one of the drug lords' recreation centers.
On December 16 of the same year, one of the leaders of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed in a shootout with members of the Mexican Navy, and on December 30, in the city of Culiacan, law enforcement agencies detained his brother and one of the leaders of the drug cartel, Carlos Beltran Leyva.
On January 12, 2010, one of the most wanted Mexican drug lords and leaders of the Tijuana drug cartel, Teodoro Garcia Simmental (nickname "El Teo"), was caught in Baja California.
In February, the Los Zetas Cartel and its ally the Beltran Leyva Cartel launched a war against the Golfo Cartel in the border town of Reynosa, turning some of the border towns into ghost towns. It was reported that a member of the Golfo cartel killed the Zetas' top lieutenant, Victor Mendoza. The group demanded that the cartel find the killer, but he refused. Thus, a new war broke out between the 2 gangs.
On June 14, members of the opposing Zetas and Sinaloa cartels staged a massacre in the Mazatlán city prison. A group of prisoners, tricked into stealing the guards' pistols and assault rifles, broke into a nearby cell block, massacring members of a rival cartel. During this and at the same time, in other parts of the prison, 29 people died from the riots.
On June 19, in the city of Ciudad Juarez, the mayor of the city of Guadalupe Distros Bravos Manuel Lara Rodriguez, who was hiding there after receiving threats against him, was shot dead, and ten days later the criminals killed Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a candidate for governor of the northwestern state of Tamaulipas.
On July 29, the military discovered in the suburbs of Guadalajara, the whereabouts of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Ignacio Coronel, and he died during the ensuing shootout. In the same month, in municipal area Tamaulipas, the military raided the ranch where the alleged members of the drug cartel were located and 4 people were killed during the shootout. While searching the area around the ranch, the Mexican military found a mass grave (the bodies of 72 people, including 14 women).
On August 30, the authorities managed to arrest the influential drug lord Edgar Valdes (nicknames Barbie, "Comandante" and "Guero"), and in early September, in the wake of operational intelligence information, one of the leaders of the drug cartel was arrested by the special forces of the naval forces in Pueblo "Beltran Leyva" Sergio Villareal (nickname "El Grande").
The next major success of the Mexican law enforcement was the arrest in the Cancun resort of the head of the Los Zetas drug cartel, Jose Angel Fernandez.
A few days earlier, on November 6, during a shootout with the military in the city of Matamoros, one of the leaders of the Gulf Cartel, Ezekiel Gardenas Guillen (nickname Tony Tormenta), was killed.
On December 7, one of the high-ranking members of the La Familia drug cartel, José Antonio Arcos, was detained. And the next day, hundreds of police and military entered the city of Apatzingan, where La Familia is based. And with the support of helicopters, they fought for two days with armed members of the drug cartel, during which several people (civilians, militants and policemen) were killed, including the head of the La Familia drug cartel, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (nickname "Mad").
On December 28, in the city of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, unknown people kidnapped the last policeman left here, after which the city was left without a police force, and in order to ensure law and order, the authorities sent troops to the city.
On January 18, 2011, near the city of Oaxaca, one of the founders of the Los Zetas cartel, Flavio Mendez Santiago (nickname Yellow), was arrested.
On June 21, during a raid near the city of Aguascalientes, in the state of the same name in central Mexico, the police detained the drug lord of the La Familia drug cartel, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas. The following month, Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, another founding member of the Los Zetas cartel, was arrested by police in the state of Mexico.
In total, since 2006, 26 thousand people have become victims of this conflict. For comparison, the number of dead Soviet soldiers during the 10 years of the war in Afghanistan is 13,833 people. Twice smaller!!!
At the moment, there are nine main drug cartels operating in Mexico: the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, the Golfo Cartel, the La Familia or La Familia Michiocana Cartel, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel, the Los Negros Cartel and the Oaxaca Cartel. You can read more about each of them by clicking on the links-names of the cartels.
And a little about the Russians, in this interesting topic:
Mexican drug cartels use members of Russian organized crime groups, as well as former KGB officers, to smuggle drugs into the United States, as well as to increase their influence in the region.
Luis Vasconcelos, head of the Organized Crime Unit at the Mexican Attorney General's Office, says that "the Russians are highly professional and extremely dangerous."
Russian mobsters help Mexican drug dealers launder money. This was stated by the head of the intelligence department of the US Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Stephen Casteel. Russians charge 30% of the money laundered for their services.
Castile argues that the emergence of Russians in Mexico is due to the globalization of organized crime. For the first time, fighters from Russian "brigades" appeared in Colombia and Mexico in the early 90s, but their finest hour came a little later. After the arrest of the head of one of the largest drug cartels in Mexico - Benjamin Arellano Felix, as well as several dozen of his assistants, the cartel began to rapidly disintegrate. Bruce Bagley, a specialist from the University of Miami, claims that it was then that Russian mafiosi began to gradually infiltrate the fragments of the once powerful organization.
"Russian fighters are much cooler than the Mexicans. They are much more brutal. They silently do their job and try not to shine unnecessarily. They don't wear gold chains, they don't cut people with chainsaws and don't throw them into rivers," says Bagley - "But don't underestimate them. These guys are the most brutal people you can imagine."
Bagley claims that the latest operations by the Mexican police, which have effectively "decapitated the Mexican drug cartels," provide the Russian mafia with a "golden opportunity to operate in Mexico." The big cartel is breaking down into small armed groups that operate at the state and city levels in Mexico. It is more difficult to detect them there, and it is easier for drug dealers to bribe local officials. Small groups of Mexican drug dealers welcome the Russians with open arms.
Most of the money laundering operations are carried out by Russians in various offshore zones - in Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Russians escort large shipments of drugs that are being shipped to the United States. In April 2001, the US Coast Police detained a ship carrying 13 tons of cocaine and a mixed Russian-Ukrainian crew.
The mafia and gangster groups of the countries of the world carefully observe their laws and customs - after all, this is their business card, which distinguishes them from ordinary street robbers and helps to remain known in certain circles, which means fear, respect, and therefore money. When threats and intimidation do not work - the mafia immediately executes a person, reminding that there is nothing personal - "just business." The types of executions also have a peculiar style, it can notify both the most criminal group-customer and the identity of the killer, and sometimes it will be easy for an insider to understand who and for what killed the unfortunate who dared somehow harm criminal clans.
Italian mafia
The sultry Sicilians, Cosa Nostra, 'Ndranghetta, and their American followers have gone down in history as the most inventive "classic" criminals in the massacre of their enemies.
Their superiority is held by strangulation with a garotte - a special noose with handles, made in the form of a very thin rope, most often a string. Interestingly, such an execution was not applicable to everyone, but only to family members, or those who used to be respected, but lost such an attitude.
For ill-wishers, “cement boots” were simpler. As a rule, the mafiosi always protected a couple of construction unions they knew, so it was not difficult for them to get a basin and cement. The victim was placed in a basin, poured with cement, waited for it to harden, and sent to the nearest reservoir "to the fish."
A rat in the mouth is a terrible kind of execution that was carried out on "snitches". Anyone who violated the law of "omerta" was tied to a chair, a rat was put into his mouth, after which his mouth was sealed with tape. The victim was terribly tormented, and if she did not die from a painful shock, then she was finished off with a firearm.
Yakuza
Influential Japanese mafiosi, as a rule, do not do chaos at first, but cut off the tip of the little finger for an insignificant offense. If a member of the clan is guilty again, they cut off the phalanx, and so on in ascending order, until the poor fellow realizes that the next cut off piece may be his head.
As for instantaneous executions, the yakuza have a wide variety here: sepukku is still in use among high-ranking members of the clan, hammering with bamboo sticks, and even an execution with a historical touch: strangulation with a silk cord.
Triad
In the Triad, the most exotic method of execution is considered "Ling Shi" - incessant death or "death by a thousand cuts." The essence of the method is small incisions all over the body, like from a paper sheet. The executioner must have a special skill, and not let the victim die quickly from a painful shock or make a cut too deep and let the victim bleed.
By the way, Confucian teaching suggests that if a person’s body was severely cut before death, then in afterlife he can no longer be whole - so for believers in China, this type of execution was considered the most terrible.
Brazilian and South African mafia
The African necklace is a terrible torture that is still used today in Brazil and South Africa. A rubber tire filled with gasoline was put on a person's chest, after which the gasoline was set on fire. The burning rubber of the tire, which burns for a long time, is hot, and besides, due to gasoline it melts with twice the speed, turned the body into a molten mass in a person.
A painful death and a terrible spectacle - exactly the effect that violent black gangs are counting on.
Russian, American mafia
Burial alive is an execution that dates back to ancient times, and was massively used even at the beginning of the 20th century. The Russian and American mafia adopted this experience, and if the first one travels and buries competitors in forest plantations, then the American mafia takes its enemies into the desert, throws a shovel under their feet and orders them to dig at gunpoint.
They still argue: it is considered mercy or cruelty to put a flashlight and a flask of water into a boarded-up coffin, because this only prolongs the torment, while not everyone can refuse a sip of water at your fingertips for the last time.
Colombian mafia
Among the members of the Colombian mafia, it is extremely difficult to find traitors and informers, because in the case of a "drain" of information, the victim's throat is cut and the tongue is pulled out, which is called the "Colombian tie".
Mexican drug cartels
Mexican drug cartels are still sadists, and dying from a bullet among them is considered a gift and an easy death. For example, they have a large arsenal of executions by our smaller brothers, from being bitten by poisonous snakes, being tortured by scorpions to putting their heads in a hornet hive.
However, the most “honorable and brutal” execution is considered to be chopping with a machete, when the victim’s arms and legs are sequentially cut off, the stomach is cut open and, finally, the head is cut off.
The Mexican drug war is an armed conflict between warring drug cartels, government forces and police in Mexico.
Although Mexican drug cartels have been around for decades, they have become more powerful since the collapse of the Colombian cartels of Medellin and Cali in the 1990s. Mexican drug cartels currently dominate the wholesale illicit drug market in the United States.
The arrests of cartel leaders have led to increased levels of violence as they have escalated the struggle between the cartels for control of drug trafficking routes to the United States.
Mexico is the main foreign supplier of cannabis and the largest supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. Since 2006, 26 thousand people have become victims of the drug war. The drug war has become a national threat in Mexico. Since the 70s, some structures state power in Mexico assisted in organizing the drug trade. The growing drug war in Mexico has also affected the United States. Mexico is the main source of cocaine and other drugs entering the US. In turn, the United States is the main source of weapons involved in the dismantling of drug cartels in Mexico. In parts of Mexico, drug cartels have accumulated military-style weapons, have counterintelligence capabilities, have accomplices among the authorities and an army of ordinary poor young people who seek to join to them. The Mexican police and armed forces and the US DEA anti-drug service are fighting against drug cartels. The government of Mexico under the rule of Felipe Calderon for the first time hit the smugglers, extradited them to foreign countries, confiscated their money and weapons.
The US State Department estimates that 90% of the cocaine entering the country comes from Mexico and Colombia, the main producer of cocaine, and that illicit drug proceeds range from $13.6 billion to $48.4 billion a year.
Military and forensic experts examine a handcuffed body outside a nightclub.
The body of a man on the side of the highway Acapulco-Mexico.
Soldiers enter the city of Ciudad Juarez to patrol the streets. The city is wholly owned by drug lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.
Arrested gang members and their weapons.
The body of one of the bandits killed during a special operation to free the hostages from the hands of drug dealers. Machine guns, cannons, ammunition, four trucks and about 2 tons of marijuana were also seized.
$206 million - police catch when arresting methamphetamine manufacturers.
Weapons, drugs, money and jewelry seized from several anti-drug operations in Mexico are on display during a press conference at the Attorney General's headquarters in Mexico City.
Arrested 1.2 tons of cocaine.
134 tons of marijuana at the Morelos military base in Tijuana, destined for destruction.
The scene of the murder of 8 people involved in the drug trade.
Gem-encrusted gold and silver pistols from members of one of the gangs, found during a search of houses.
An arrested drug dealer who held several people hostage.
Three-year-old Iliana Hernandez, shot together with her father by unknown persons, is in the coffin.
A friend mourns the body of Sergio Hernandez, a 14-year-old who tried to cross the US border and was apparently killed by US border guards.
The bodies of two men with their hands and faces tied. The reasons for the murder are unknown.
Two bodies hanging on a bridge in the center of a Mexican city. The reason for the execution is either a showdown within drug gangs, or an act of intimidation for everyone trying to cooperate with the police.
After a shootout between the police and the drug gang.
Search for bullets next to the shot young people in handcuffs. The reason for the murder is unknown.
More than a ton of cocaine, which was shown to the media after the seizure of a consignment of drugs.
A police officer guards a crime scene where four people were shot dead in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most dangerous place. More than 2,000 people have died this year in Mexico's drug war, mostly between warring gangs, to control the US drug smuggling that runs through this city.
On the woman's nails are marijuana sheets and a portrait of one of the drug lords.
Marijuana plantation.
The box in which the body of a woman was found. Initially, it was thought that the box might contain a bomb.
After a shootout between bandits and police in Ciudad Juarez.
Approximately two tons of seized cocaine are being tested at a naval base.
Ciudad Juarez. Murdered members of the city's local government.
Arrest of a pregnant woman for possession and distribution of drugs.
A policeman stands outside a Mexican home where members of a mostly Colombian drug gang have been arrested.
Found corpses of employees of a law office, thanks to which drug dealers were previously arrested.
The body of a man in Guatemala after a shootout on the street.
Colombian police officers check packages of cocaine after a flight with drugs weighing 3 and a half tons is delayed.
One of 17 bodies dumped in prominent locations in Rio de Janeiro, just after the president announced a $60 million anti-crime package ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
The fearsome female drug cartel boss, known for kidnapping victims and planting their dismembered bodies on the doorsteps of the murdered, has been detained in Mexico after her lover, horrified by the monster she has become, turned in a friend to the police.
Melissa "La China" Calderon, who her boyfriend and deputy Pedro "El Chino" Gomez calls a "maniac", is accused of killing 180 people. The largest female drug dealer was captured on Saturday after El Chino turned over information, including about the secret burial sites of his girlfriend's victims, to authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Melissa Margarita Calderón Ojeda, 30, known as "La China" (Chinese), became involved in organized crime in 2005, working for the Damaso drug cartel. This criminal organization has ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, which operates in the Mexican state of Baja California - one of the country's main regions for drug smuggling - and is headed by recently escaped prison Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.
Known for her ruthlessness and brutality, in 2008 she was appointed head of the cartel's armed wing. Her power extended to the city of La Paz and the popular tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.
In the seven years she ran the armed wing of the cartel, the murder rate in Baja California Sur tripled. La China became infamous for kidnapping her victims from their homes and then tossing their dismembered bodies on doorsteps as a warning to local communities.
When she was offered to resign from her position in the Damaso cartel, she fled and declared war on her former associates. To motivate the gang members, La Chyna ordered bags of cocaine to be handed out to them. Rogelio "El Tyson" Franco (left) led the logistics, Sergio "El Scar" Beltrán (center) became the master killer, and Pedro "El Peter" Cisneros (right) ran the drug sales and disposal of the bodies. In addition, La China had more than three hundred street drug dealers and fighters who traveled on red motorcycles to identify themselves.
La China placed great importance on safety and constantly changed cars and places of residence. In early August, fearing that her vehicles were known to the authorities and being tracked, La Chyna ordered logistics El Tyson to buy a pickup truck. El Tyson sent two friends of his parents to La Chine who wanted to sell the car, but she killed them without paying anything. El Péter buried their bodies in a secluded area north of the city.
When El Tyson arrived on the scene and saw his innocent friends brutally murdered, he got angry and threatened to go to the police. In a fit of rage at the alleged infidelity, La China cut off El Tyson's forearms before killing him.
Shortly thereafter, master assassin El Scar murdered his beloved prostitute after she refused further relationship with him due to his violent sexual tastes.
The last straw was a failed kidnapping attempt by El Tocho, a member of the Damaso drug cartel that was fighting for La China's territories in La Paz. The bandits managed to detain his girlfriend Lourdes, whom La China brutally tortured, trying to find out information, and then killed.
After that, El Chino, the lover of the head of the drug cartel, shocked by her cruelty, left the gang and was soon captured by the police. During interrogation, he spoke about how La Chyna's behavior got out of hand. His words were soon confirmed by El Peter, who was detained a week later. El Peter showed the police the location of the secret graves.
La China was arrested without firing a shot on Saturday, September 19, at Los Cabos International Airport, while trying to flee the country. She was taken to a prison in La Paz, the city she controlled just three months ago. La China is currently being interrogated in Mexico City and will face trial next year for more than 150 murders.
