The Mexico City Police reported on Tuesday the largest cocaine seizure in its history. It is a shipment of 1,680 kilos of drugs from Colombia and that had Los Angeles as its final destination. “This represents a strong blow to the financial structure of criminal organizations,” said Omar García Harfuch, the Secretary of Citizen Security of the Mexican capital. Four detainees have been reported after the police operation, as well as three vehicles that were insured, one of them with hidden compartments to facilitate the transport of narcotics through Mexican territory.
The shipment of cocaine left South America by sea and arrived in Mexico after being delivered off the coast of Puerto Escondido, one of the busiest beach destinations in the south of the country, according to the reconstruction carried out by the authorities. From there she was taken by tractor trucks to Mexico City. Part of the drug was going to be distributed in Tepito, one of the best-known neighborhoods of the capital, although most were going to be delivered on the east coast of the United States.
In the images shared by the Police, the officers are seen hammering the top of the vehicles and discovering hundreds of stacked packages of cocaine. The operation took place in the Gustavo A. mayor’s office. Madero, at the northern end of Mexico City and very close to the border with the State of Mexico, on Río de los Remedios Avenue. The confiscation took place in collaboration with the authorities of the State of Mexico, who identified two trucks and an escort vehicle that passed through municipalities in the conurbated area of the capital, as well as with the Ministry of Defense, Navy and intelligence elements. “It is warned that it is arriving in Mexico City and from there it is that confiscation and arrests are made,” explained the Head of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum.
García Harfuch has said that the shipment was linked to a criminal group with a presence in the states of Sinaloa and Durango, in the region of Mexico known as the Golden Triangle of drug trafficking. The Secretary of Security has not specified whether it was the Sinaloa Cartel nor has he named any other criminal organization by name. The four detainees are from Durango, they are linked to the same cartel and three of them already had a criminal record. “As soon as we have the first statements with the Attorney General’s Office, we will be able to declare it in a more formal way,” García Harfuch said.
The official has estimated that the shipment of cocaine is valued at 400 million pesos, about 20 million dollars, according to the prices known in the retail market of the capital. The value of the drug would have been twice as much as it had reached the streets of Los Angeles. García Harfuch has said that several drug trafficking routes have already been identified and that he is confident that intelligence work will soon result in new seizures. “This drug has a much higher price when it enters the narco-indeal and generates injuries from firearms, violence and disputes between groups over the points of sale of the drug,” he said.
Two weeks ago, Mexico City Police forces were shot dead with alleged kidnappers on the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway. The result was three officers injured and 14 arrested, although in the end only a dozen of them were charged. In addition, four people who had been kidnapped were released. On that occasion, García Harfuch also pointed out that some of those involved were from the State of Sinaloa and said that it was a cell that had been controlling the retail sale of drugs in the south of the capital for months, but avoided identifying them as members of the homonymous cartel. Unofficially, the coup was linked to a cell associated with the children of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, historical leader of that organization.
At the end of June 2020, García Harfuch suffered an attack and was hit by three bullets, after the vehicle in which he was traveling was attacked with a burst of more than 400 shots. Two escorts of the Secretary of Security died, as well as a woman who died in the crossfire. Since then, 14 suspects have been arrested, accused as members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, an organization rival to the Sinaloa Cartel. In Mexico City alone, the presence of 51 drug trafficking groups and gangs has been identified, among the more than 150 that dominate the country, according to the latest criminal map presented by academics from the Center for Economic Research and Teaching.
