The terror tactics of criminal organizations in Mexico are no longer limited to hanging a narcomanta on public roads. Nowthis fear strategy is usually accompanied by people being murdered next to these messages.
An investigation of MILLENNIUM reveals that the mafias leave a corpse under every three narcomantas. And in the city of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, they leave a lifeless body next to each bloody message.
In Veracruz and Zacatecas The cases are counted in the hundreds; in Quintana Roo and Tabasco Security authorities report dozens of these episodes.
According to information provided by the state prosecutor’s offices and security secretaries, from December 2018 to August 2024, in 20 states of the Republic 2,531 insurance claims were registered narcomantas.
In that same period, 752 bodies were reported found next to or near these messages from the Mexican mafias.
What is the state with the most narcomantas?
The state that recorded the highest number of narcomantas In the last six years it was Quintana Roowith 1,344 messages attributed to criminal organizations, while the entity that reported the most cases of intentional homicides near a message with these characteristics was Zacatecaswith 330 facts.
David Saucedo, a security consultant, commented that the narcomantas They work for criminal groups as a mechanism of narcoterrorism against antagonistic criminal organizations.especially in the dispute over squares or territories, and highlights that if these messages are accompanied by corpses “the narrative of terror is enhanced.”
Another type of narcomantas -duck- “They are directed at authorities, especially commanders of police corporations.” or to ordinary police, in which death threats are made, especially to make them abandon security in certain areas or stop investigating crimes.”
“There are also narcomantas where pig heads are used, which are above all used to threaten public security authorities at the three levels of government, or to point out alleged links between these authorities and organized crime,” he notes.
Zacatecas and Veracruz, more bodies
The cases of Zacatecas and Veracruz are significant in this phenomenon. In these entities the number of bodies found near drug dealers is almost the same or more than half of the mafia messages secured by the authorities. In Zacatecas, for example, Of the 382 narcomantas seized, 330 were accompanied by a lifeless body.
In Veracruz, 392 tarps from criminal groups were found in that period and the number of lifeless bodies near those messages was 284.
Although some state security and law enforcement authorities who responded to requests for information from MILLENNIUM They did not make a breakdown by year of the number of bodies near these messages from criminal groups, The period that had the highest number of cases was 2020with 86 facts.
2021 follows, with 72; From January to July 2024, 69 lifeless bodies have been found; In 2023 there were 65 findings, and in 2019 64 cases were reported.
The years that recorded the lowest number of cases were 2022, with 36 reports, and in December 2018, 13 events of this type were presented.
The Zacatecan city of Fresnillo is the mayor’s office that reports the most lifeless bodies found near some narcomantawith 70 cases. They are followed, in descending order, by two other municipalities of said entity: the capital, with 57 findings of bodies, and Guadalupe, with 34 intentional homicides within the perimeter of location of these messages on public roads.
The fourth place is occupied by the municipality of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, with 31 cases, and in fifth place is the mayor’s office of Benito Juárez (Cancún), Quintana Roo, with 22 cases of people murdered near drug dealers.
Blankets abound in Quintana Roo
As for the five municipalities where the largest number of drug traffickers were arrested between 2018 and 2024, they are all municipalities in the state of:
Quintana Roo: Benito Juárez (Cancun) with 506 messages; Solidarity, with 401; Othón P. Blanco (Chetumal), with 100; Cozumel, with 99, and Bacalar, with 96.
The sixth place is occupied by Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, with 86; the seventh is the city of Zacatecas, with 77; the eighth Fresnillo, Zacatecas, with 75; the ninth Tulum, Quintana Roo, with 66, and tenth Villahermosa, Tabasco, with 51.
Despite the fact that in the requests for information via transparency, the name of the criminal groups that were credited with placing the narcomantas and the murders that they perpetrated and that they placed near these messages were requested, Only the states of Tamaulipas and Puebla complied with the request in their respective responses.
The Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat indicated that of the 47 narcomantas seized from December 2018 to August 2024, “18 were signed with the initials CDN (Northeast Cartel), 13 with the initials CDG (Gulf Cartel), one with the initials ZVE (Zetas Vieja Escuela) and 15 did not specify”.
In the case of Puebla, the Public Security Secretariat of said entity states that of the five messages from the mafias registered in the last six years, all in 2024, The organized crime groups referred to are “Michoacanos”, in one narcomanta insured in the municipality of Amozoc.
“Malverde”, in the Tepexi de Rodríguez mayor’s office; “Commander Zaka. CH”, in the city of Puebla; “The New Warrior Line“, in the town hall of Tehuacán, and “New blood”, in the municipality of Teziutlán.
In this regard, David Saucedo explained that a very alarming issue is that in this type of “narcoterrorism narratives” It is observed that “they went beyond the old dynamic of remaining only with a message in public, even if it was made of fabrics or sheets, and that they only remained with a threat or warning.”
“Now these messages are spread through social networks, in photographs or videos, but the murdered people are also shown next to these blankets or cardboard made in printing presses, where it is increasingly common for decapitated bodies, severed, with visible signs of torture or hanging from bridges.”
States that did not cooperate with the investigation
lThe state prosecutor’s offices and security secretaries that refused to provide said information or that they threw the ball at the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, by arguing that these are crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction, were those of:
Guanajuato, Durango, Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, Colima, Campeche and Mexico City.
RM
