Mexico’s narco underworld has seen the fragmentation of its major criminal groups in recent years, perhaps none more so than the Gulf and Zetas cartels, whose home turf in northeast Mexico has seen consistently high levels of violence.
In and around Reynosa – a major city across the border from McAllen, Texas – there have been numerous violent clashes between various factions of the Gulf cartel over the past several months.
Reynosa had 144 homicides through September, according to data compiled by the Mexican federal government. That was a 167% increase over the 54 homicides the city had over the same period last year, and a 92% increase over the 75 homicides between January and September 2015. (Federal data is thought to underreport homicides .)
Nearly 60 of Reynosa’s homicides so far this year came in May and June – the weeks after the April 22 killing of Juan Manuel Loisa Salinas in a clash with Mexican authorities.
Known as Comandante Toro, Loisa Salinas was the leader of factions of the Gulf cartel, and his death appears to have set off the latest round of heightened violence, according to Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
“With his demise, the Gulf cartel has splintered even more, where it’s almost like so many grains of rice,” Vigil told Business Insider. “And that has led to a lot of violence.”
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