Mexico combats rising level of drug crimes
MEXICO CITY: Masked police officers pointed assault rifles from a helicopter that flew low over Mexico City last week as security forces employ unprecedented heavy-handed tactics to combat a rise in levels of drug violence rarely seen in the capital.
In a sight more familiar to Mexico’s most dangerous border cities, goggled and masked officers hung from open doors, surveying the streets, their weapons trained on the ground 250m below.
When homicides, kidnapping and extortion soared across the country over the past decade as cartels battled security forces, Mexico City kept a lid on the worst crime and prospered.
For several years, murders in the capital actually declined.
Now though, killings are at a record 45% since 2014. The city is on track for another record this year.
Although still well below the national average, and comparable to some US cities, the violence in Mexico City is further denting the image of a country whose top resorts of Cancun and Los Cabos have seen gory murders and shoot- outs soar over the past year.
Just in recent days, Mexico City crime pages reported a man whose body was found in a car, his head on the roof, and another whose limbs were found in an ice box.
Earlier this year, an American tourist was killed by a stray bullet at an upscale taco joint.
Police say much of the crime stems from retail drug dealing from violent local gangs, although authorities say at least one of these has links to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a major national trafficking group.