Standing guard at the scene of the crime, the two police officers surveyed the shattered glass and bullet-pocked bodywork of the Mercedes Benz hatchback and offered their analysis. As the officers spoke, a group of children kicked a football just beyond the yellow crime scene tape, and customers wandered unperturbed in and out of a row of shops.
Only an hour before gunmen on a motorcycle had opened fire on the car which crashed into the side of a health clinic; miraculously the two occupants survived. Manzanillo and the surrounding state of Colima were once best known for their black sand beaches, lime groves and a smoldering volcano that erupts every century or so. Over the past year, however, the region has claimed a new title: murder capital of Mexico. According to federal figures, Colima registered homicides in the first nine months of β a huge number in a population of just , Local officials blame the killings on outsiders or describe it as score-settling between petty criminals.
Ten years of a militarised campaign against the cartels has not ended the trade in drugs, or helped enforce rule of law in Mexico. It has, however, weakened or splintered several crime factions, leaving a handful of powerful survivors fighting for the spoils. It emerged in following a fight for the spoils of a prominent Sinaloa cartel boss, Nacho Coronel, who was killed by the army , and for the past five years or so it has used Manzanillo to import chemical precursors from Asia for the production of methamphetamines.
Vega said the cartel was well entrenched β both in the rugged Sierras where it produces heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines, and in the corridors of power, where it maintains connections at all levels of government. The group launched itself on the national stage in by dumping 35 bodies under a bridge in the Atlantic coast state of Veracruz; at the time, the group called itself the Zeta-killers, and professed to be targeting the powerful Zetas cartel.
As federal forces closed in on El Mencho in May , the CJNG launched a coordinated show of strength across Jalisco and neighbouring regions, blocking dozens of roads with hijacked vehicles and setting banks and petrol stations on fire.
