Anti -narcotics researchers of the National Civil Police (PNC) confirmed that members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel enter the country and maintain an active presence at the border between Guatemala and Mexico, where the responsibilities that Aller Baldomero Samayoa Reinino, alleged leader of the poster Los Huistas are disputed, known with the alias alias Cicadaextradited to the United States.
The confrontation between Mexican police and an armed group occurred on the table, Huehuetenango, in recent days, evidenced the way they operate and the struggles they maintain, although this fact is attributed to the Chiapas and Guatemala poster. Police investigators indicate that these groups “enter and leave the national territory” by blind points for different purposes, among which the shelter does not include, but to monitor sowing poppy in border departments such as San Marcos and Huehuetenango, establish laboratories for the manufacture of methamphetamines and recruit ex -kaibiles.
Researchers refer that, along the Mexico-Guatemala border, the CJNG operates. Even, inside its ranks there are Guatemalans. Since Samayoa Recinos was captured – hears The fleeingwhich operates in Huehuetenango and throughout the border between Mexico and Guatemala – there is a struggle within that group for assuming the responsibilities of the extradited, explained one of the agents.
Nor do they rule out that the same violence problems occur soon in Petén and San Marcos, because blind points prevail.
“At the national level there are more than 50 blind points,” said the researcher.
Responsibility
The General Director of the National Civil Police (PNC), David Custodio Bite, stressed that border control is an exclusive responsibility for the Guatemala army, and that the PNC acts as support. However, he pointed out that they must “balance” the human resource, because they must also protect other points, such as the border with El Salvador, to avoid the entry of gang members, as well as Izabal and Chiquimula, due to the presence of gangs from Honduras.
Custodio Boto indicated that the most conflicting municipalities for drug trafficking and irregular movements of people remain Ayutla and Carmen, in San Marcos, in addition to Petén and Huehuetenango. He also said that the internal struggle in the CJNG is related to the leadership dispute both on the Mexican and Guatemalan side, which causes instability in the area.
The director stressed that the former Kaibiles are recruited by the Mexican posters, and indicated that during 2022 and 2023 in border departments circulated flyers and blankets in which places for security guards were offered, although they were actually calls to integrate illegal armed groups. According to the police chief, they were offered monthly salaries between Q3 thousand and Q5 thousand.
For months, merchants and smuggers have denounced that, to cross Mexican territory and buy merchandise, they must make unauthorized payments to these armed groups. The charges vary according to the type of merchandise, the quantity and the vehicle in which they mobilize. In some cases, abuse is committed when the car is striking of the groups and is stolen from their owners.
“A lot of drugs and money is no longer arriving in the United States. In addition, synthetic drug is extremely cheap in that country and is replacing cocaine. Therefore, cocaine is staying in Guatemala,” said Custodio.
Who is the chicharra
The United States cataloged Samayoa Recinos and Eugenio Darío Molina López, aka The bootslike the top poster bosses The fleeingwhich operates in Huehuetenango and throughout the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
The United States Foreign Assets Control Office (OFAC, in English) designated on March 18, 2022, to the drug trafficking organization and its leaders, in accordance with Executive Order 14059, by drug trafficking that threatens the people and the safety of the United States and Guatemala.
Samayoa Recinos was arrested in an operation in Mexico and sent to Guatemala to begin the extradition process to the US.
Samayoa was number one in the list of the 100 most wanted in Guatemala. For him, a reward of Q50 thousand was offered, while the United States offered US $ 10 million for information that led to its capture.
According to the US signs, Samayoa Recinos and Molina López from 2012 to The fleeinggroup that operates in what that country considers an “area of strategic importance” for being located on the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
Problem without solution
Mario Mérida, former public governor and analyst on security issues, considers that the current situation of violence and presence of criminal groups on the border between Guatemala and Mexico responds to the lack of interest of Guatemalan governments in strengthening cross -border security.
“A clear sample of this lack of attention was the demobilization of the military zone in San Marcos, which left the national security forces with less capacity to monitor the 968 linear kilometers of border. We are guarding almost a thousand kilometers. There is no control. Each meter is a step towards the border,” he said.
To that is added – according to Mérida – an institutional “comfort” when shielding behind the argument that there are more than 100 blind steps. However, he emphasized that the real problem lies in the absence of a national strategy.
“No one attends that there is a National Security Council and that there is a national intelligence system that should work together,” he warned.
Mérida recalled recent episodes in which Mexican communities fled towards Guatemala for the violence on the border, without the Guatemalan authorities, monitoring or adequate attention.
He also mentioned the existence of the high level of border security (Gansf) – also known as Gances -, a mechanism created in 2000 by Mexico and Guatemala to address security and development issues in the border area. “The last meeting that was made of that group was, if I’m not bad, in the government of Otto Pérez Molina, and since then it has not been known more,” he lamented.
He indicated that there is currently only one military zone located in Huehuetenango, with a fixed headquarters, which limits coverage.
“That’s where the Jeeps donated by the US army were sent, but it is not known what results that has had,” he added.