Mexican cartels have been ramping up the use of armored “monster” trucks and retrofitting them with more advanced weapons, according to The New York Times.
The cartels in Mexico are adding battering rams, welded four-inch-thick steel plates and machine gun turrets to the trucks, according to the NYT. More of them are taking to the streets of Mexico, giving way to a more militarized armada of cartels threatening the country. (RELATED: Mexican National Who Overstayed Visa Arrested At Northern Border For Alleged Child Sex Trafficking)
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is using the armored vehicles to fight police, while the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel are using the trucks to fight rival groups, according to the NYT.
The cartels use the trucks “to try to enforce by violent means their dominance against adversary gangs and against authority,’’ Jorge Septién, a Mexico City-based expert on ballistics and armaments, said, according to the NYT.
The trucks, which are typically similar to Ford F-150s, became popular in 2020, when Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes was seen in social media videos showcasing his army of militants wearing balaclavas and camouflage, according to the NYT. The vehicles have also been seen in drone footage that aired in 2021 of an Jalisco New Generation Cartel attack against local police officers and residents.
“The monsters are the way to send the message, ‘I’m in charge, and I want everyone to see I’m in charge,’” Romain Le Cour, senior expert at the Switzerland-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, told the NYT. “These are commando-style groups looking to replicate special forces in how they’re armed, how they’re trained, how they look.”
View of a bullet-riddled wall bearing the initials of the criminal group Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) at the entrance of the community of Aguililla, state of Michoacan, Mexico, on April 23, 2021. (Photo by ENRIQUE CASTRO / AFP) (Photo by ENRIQUE CASTRO/AFP via Getty Images)
With the increasing capabilities of the vehicles, Mexico has armed its military with rocket launchers, according to the NYT.
“It has to do with a status symbol,” Septién said. “The first ones we saw were practically blow-torched and welded in a very shoddy way.”
Meanwhile, the downside of using the trucks with such heavy equipment is that they’re heavier and more difficult to maneuver, according to the NYT.
“They’re too slow, too heavy,” said Alexei Chévez, a security analyst based in Cuernavaca, Mexico. And the retrofitting of the vehicles means that some of their parts malfunction. “We see them constantly breaking down and being abandoned,” Chévez said.
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