Mexico City has long enjoyed a reputation as a safe haven from the gangland violence that has dogged the rest of the country. But its refusal to admit the extent of its own problem with organised criminal gangs has been criticised as absurd, implausible and politically motivated after a recent spate of brutal killings and extortion rackets exposed signs of organised crime across the city.
Business leaders, crime analysts and shopkeepers have all spoken to the Guardian about the infiltration of criminal groups into the capital, which is now affecting even its most illustrious neighbourhoods following years of government denial and inaction.
Out in the city’s poorer, sprawling suburbs, the tortured body of an unidentified man wrapped in bandages was recently found hanging from a bridge close to a police base in the Iztapalapa borough.
This gruesome practice is most commonly associated with narco violence in Mexico’s northern states such as Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Chihuahua, where cartels have publicly displayed mutilated bodies to intimidate rival groups in territory disputes, terrorise the public and warn authorities.
The murder in Iztapalapa on 19 October was the first time that such an emblematic display of terror has been reported in the capital. The victim had been shot twice in the head, and was left hanging without shoes on the main road connecting the capital with the state of Puebla. Authorities say he was approximately 25 years old.
The following day the charred body of another unidentified man was found dumped close by in a burning petrol barrel. His hands were tied together, eyes and neck covered with bandages, and his body – which had suffered 70% burns – also showed signs of torture, authorities said.
Hours later, a third dead man was found dumped in the same borough. The body was left next to a piece of cardboard with a menacing message addressed to Mexico City’s mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, threatening further murders against rival groups. It was reportedly signed by a gang led by a convicted criminal known as “the Wasp” – who was jailed for crimes including murder and extortion by Mancera when he was the city’s chief prosecutor. The victim was aged 30.
Just last Friday another ominous message addressed to the mayor and Ministry of Defence was draped from a pedestrian bridge in the Tlalpan district. The narco manta – long used by cartels to communicate threats – promised more hanging bodies unless the city police stopped protecting certain criminals. The message was signed by several groups including the Last Shadow and the Sinaloa cartel.
This latest wave of grisly violence has cast fresh doubts on persistent government claims that Mexico City – the jewel in the crown of the world’s 14th-largest economy – is an organised crime-free zone. In recent years, city and federal authorities have erroneously blamed several high-profile crimes on local disputes in order to preserve the clean image of the capital, critics claim.
One of the most notorious recent examples was the audacious daylight abduction of 12 young people from the unlicensed after-hours Heaven bar just blocks away from Mexico City’s police headquarters in May 2013. Even after the bodies were found three months later in a grave just east of the city limits – in an area then controlled by the Michoacán Family cartel – city officials insisted the massacre was part of a dispute between local drug dealers and had no links to organised crime.
In July 2015, Mancera flatly rejected a DEA intelligence report which said five of the country’s most powerful cartels – the Zetas, Knights Templar, Gulf, Beltran-Leyva and Sinaloa – were active in the capital.
Erubiel Tirado, coordinator of the National Security and Democracy programme at Ibero-American University, told the Guardian it was absurd and inconceivable that Mexico City remained unaffected by organised crime, especially given its demographic and geo-strategic importance.
“There have been at least 10 brutal incidents in DF in recent years which were clearly linked to organised crime,” he said. “Yet, the government continues to claim these murders were isolated incidents and everything is under control because to accept the truth would have serious political implications for both city and federal governments.
“This latest escalation of violence is both a message and a challenge directed towards other criminal groups, and the government, in what is a disputed territory.”
Authorities say the recent murders had “absolutely no link” to organised crime. All three victims have been identified and none had criminal records, the city’s chief prosecutor Rodolfo Ríos Garza told the Guardian, adding that the murders were most probably connected to disputes involving inmates and guards from the nearby Reclusorio Oriente prison.
The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive: “Iztapalapa is an area where organised crime groups traffic drugs, weapons and people, and carry out kidnappings and extortion,” said investigative journalist Sergio González Rodríguez. “It is near dangerous municipalities within the state of Mexico, and corrupt authorities have helped create an ensemble between the criminal prison population of the Reclusorio Oriente and criminal groups operating throughout the city.”
Iztapalapa is the most densely populated and one of the poorest boroughs in the capital, where big business and tourism are rare. Just a few miles north-west are the stylish neighbourhoods of Condesa and Roma, where middle-class families and foreigners mingle in charming parks and fancy bars and restaurants. It’s another world, which until recently was considered very safe.
An investigation published in July 2014 by the respected online news website Sin Embargo detailed an armed extortion ring taking over homes and businesses under construction in Condesa – refusing to leave until the owners made huge payments.
In July, chief prosecutor Ríos visited businesses in Roma and Condesa in response to increasing media reports of extortion. Rios concluded that there was no evidence of extortion rackets – a conclusion later backed by the president of the national chamber of the restaurant and food industry.
Nevertheless, uniformed police officers were soon highly visible on the streets as part of an ongoing operation to secure the area. “They launched an operation to prevent organised crime while at the same time denying it exists in city, it make no sense,” said one local crime reporter, who asked to remain anonymous.
Recently, a similar police operation was announced for the historic centre of the city, which business leaders say is being overwhelmed by organised criminal networks.
Guillermo Gazal, director of Procentrhico (Businessmen and Merchants United for the Protection of Mexico City’s Historic Centre), told the Guardian that at least seven or eight criminal networks including the Zetas, Unión Tepito, the Koreans and Jalisco New Generation are active in the city.
“There are organised crime groups in every single one of the city’s 16 boroughs where they rob, extort and even kill and yet the authorities don’t pay attention,” Gazal told the Guardian.
“Areas like Tepito and Iztapalapa are no-go areas [for businesses], but this year things are getting worse in nice areas like Condesa, Roma and the historic centre, where drugs are sold in bars and clubs by organised groups, and many businesses are forced to pay around 5,000 pesos (£200) a week in extortion.
“The city government minimises the presence of organised crime because it is politically convenient, but this has lost it all credibility,” he added.
In his third annual report as mayor, published in September, Mancera reported a 12.4% annual decrease in high-impact crimes which include murder, kidnap, car theft and extortion. But an upsurge of disquieting anecdotal evidence – as well as some official figures – contradicts his claim of improving security.
There were at least 642 murders in the capital in the first nine months of 2015 – a 22% increase on the same period last year, according to federal figures. It is the worst year on record since 1998.
In the same period, 466 extortions were reported – a similar figure to 2014 – but now many victims simply pay up because they are scared or have no faith in authorities, according to Gazal.
Shopkeepers in the heart of the city told the Guardian about the growing threats from criminal groups, speaking on condition of anonymity.
One local resident, who did not want to be named, has spent her entire life living and working in the heart of the historic centre. Six months ago, nine men came to the gift store where she works demanding protection money. The leader’s face was covered by his helmet and visor, but she recognised the other eight from the neighbourhood.
“The guy with his face hidden told my boss that he had to pay the peones (foot soldiers) $5,000 pesos (£200) each week for security. My boss negotiated to pay $300 (£15) daily, so they come to the shop every day on their mopeds, acting over-friendly but also intimidating. They often mention a nearby shop which was destroyed by an explosion a year ago, telling us not to forget what happened there.”
The extortion has even spread to the poorest traders, including informal parking attendants (viene vienes) and street vendors – who recently draped cars with homemade signs reading “no more extortion”, the woman said.
“The peones chat and laugh with the local police officers, they are friends, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, so of course no-one reports it,” she added.
Ríos told the Guardian that delinquents often falsely claimed to be members of a cartel in order to intimidate victims and misdirect investigations.
“There is no organised crime in Mexico City,” he said. “There may be local criminal groups, but not one single cartel or drug-trafficking group is present in Mexico City … This has been confirmed by the federal government. Unlike other states, we’ve not had the elements which indicate their presence such as street gun battles between sicarios (hit men) ... not a single murder committed during this administration has been linked to organised crime.”
So far, Mexico City’s 22 million inhabitants have been spared the daily gangland atrocities suffered by so many other parts of the country, but it is “misleading and potentially dangerous” to deny the presence of organised crime groups in the capital, according to InsightCrime.
NarcoData – a new interactive website monitoring organised crime groups and their activities across Mexico – could make it harder for authorities to maintain the denial.
Tirado said: “Over the past two decades, the focus of successive governments has been on maintaining an image of peace and tranquillity in Mexico City, rather than implementing intelligent policies to prevent and tackle organised crime. This has made the city more dangerous for its citizens.”
