Borderland Beat uploads graphic video

Borderland Beat uploaded a highly graphic video, available on Mexican web sites, that purportedly shows a man being beheaded and his son having his heart ripped out.  I have not watched it.  The man was presumably an informant for authorities.

The killers are said to be members of an alliance between several gangs, Sangre Nueva Guerrernse, from Zihuatanejo, Los Viagras, and R18MZ.  R18MZ is known as the armed force of Mayo Zambada, a drug lord who once worked for Chapo Guzman in Sinaloa and prior to that, the Carrillo Fuentes family that ran the Juarez cartel for several years. Zambada is believed to have taken over the Sinaloa cartel after the extradition of Chapo Guzman to the U.S.  Los Viagras is a gang operating in Western Michoacan state, headed by a man known as El Gordo.  It was once a paramilitary wing of the Knights Templar cartel in Michoacan, but flipped sides, leading to the arrest of Knights Templar leader La Tuta in February of 2015.  It now operates on the lam, pursued both by Mexican authorities and, sometimes, remnants of the Knights Templar organization, now known as Sangre Nueva Guerrerense.  Apparently there has been a least a tentative truce between SNG and Los Viagras, given that the video suggests a "union" between these groups.

Parts of Guerrero state are on the watch list for U.S. citizens, since several Americans have been killed, including the director of administrative services of Imperial Beach, CA, reported here on Dec. 31, 2017, who was killed in Ixtapa in Guerrero state near the resort town of Zihuatanejo.  Readers are advised to exercise caution if traveling anywhere in Guerrero state.

In 2014 and 2014 war broke out among various gangs in this region, causing a spike in homicides.  Among the gangs affected were:   Los Rojos, Guerreros Unidos, Los Ardillos, Los Tequileros, Gente Nueva, Los Beltrán Leyva, Los Caballeros Templarios, La Familia Michoacana, El Cártel del Sur, Cártel Independiente de Acapulco, Guardia Guerrerense, Sangre Nueva Guerrerense, Los Viagras and elements of the Sinaloa y Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels.


Violence in 2018 in Guerrero appears be tied to a new war between the Nueva Familia Michoacana and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).