The dispute over control of Mexico’s southern border left 19 dead on July 1 in La Concordia, Chiapas, including four Guatemalans, according to the National Civil Police (PNC).
According to information from the police institution, Guatemalan documents have so far been found on four of the 19 deceased, whose bodies were in the gondola of a dump truck and around the vehicle.
Mexican authorities said in a statement that it was a confrontation between apparent hitmen from the Sinaloa, Chiapas and Guatemala cartels, who are fighting control of the southern border of Mexico, in the state of Chiapas.
It was reported that the confrontation occurred on a dirt road that connects Jaltenango de la Paz with the community of La Reforma, La Concordia.
Why are there Guatemalans?
According to information from police investigators, drug cartels seek to recruit Guatemalans with “military training,” especially kaibiles or ex-kaibiles, to whom they offer monthly payments ofand US$3 thousand or US$7 thousand, which means about Q24 thousand or Q56 thousand.
Generally, according to researchers, the recruited Kaibiles are from Quiché, Alta Verapaz and Petén, because they are border departments or regions used as a bridge for the passage of drugs to Mexico.
Anti-narcotics agents of the PNC indicated that Guatemala is a “bridge” for the passage of drugs coming fromand South America and moving towards Mexico.
They also pointed out that part of the drugs that pass through the country are sold at retail.
The criminal groups in charge of receiving the drugs are located in Guatemala City, mainly in Zone 3 of the capital, and it is the gang members who are in charge of distributing them in different areas, which according to police specialists, has generated a war between the same cliques in the 18th neighborhood.
The general director of the PNC, David Custodio Boteo, assured that to prevent the entry of Mexican criminal groups into Guatemala, Police security and combined patrols with the army are maintained in the border departments, mainly in Quiché and Petén.
Border Security
In May of this year, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during a meeting with President Bernardo Arévalo assured that before handing over power, he will seek to resolve the problem generated by organized crime groups. in some localities in Chiapas, Mexico and border areas with Guatemala.
The Mexican president acknowledged that the clashes between drug cartels have “claimed hundreds of human lives.”
On that date, Obrador said that during his government they managed to increase the number of soldiers on the border with Guatemala, and from having 900 members of the National Guard, they increased to 2,400 troops.
The Ministry of Defense and the PNC also reported that the “Ring of Fire” operation is continuing, which consists of the deployment of 4,500 soldiers on the common borders, and 800 PNC agents in the “Territorial Control” program.
According to Guatemalan authorities, the vulnerable areas for the entry of armed groups border on Peten, Quiche, Huehuetenango and San Marcos.
In February of this year, the US issued an alert, asking its citizens to take extreme security measures and prohibiting government employees from traveling to Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, due to “security situations” in the border area with Guatemala. However, the Ministry of the Interior reported that they had not identified any threat to Guatemalan territory.
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