Drug lords hunt corrupt police officers who stole shipment in Tijuana
A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.
Two of the officers suspected of the theft have been killed, prosecutors say. But so have at least three other officers, according to the city’s former police chief, suggesting the cartel believed to have owned the drugs may have launched a generalized retribution.
It is the latest blow for Tijuana which has the most homicides of any city in Mexico, with about double the number of the place that comes second – the border city of Ciudad Juárez. Tijuana, situated in the border state of Baja California and with a population of over 2.1 million, has for several years seen about 2,000 murders annually. By comparison, Houston, Texas, which has about the same population, saw 435 killings in 2022.
According to prosecutors, in midNovember, a half-dozen local and state police officers in Tijuana allegedly hatched a plot to steal a large shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers were storing it.
Video emerged last week of the officers’ pickup truck pulling out of the building with big, plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the truck bed.
State prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade confirmed this week that three state detectives were under investigation in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police.
Alberto Capella, the former head of Tijuana’s police force from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told the Associated Press that the cache of drugs appeared to have belonged to the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the wing controlled by drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, probably the most powerful gang in town.
Apparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who had pulled off the robbery.
On 18 November, just hours after the theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors’ office in Tijuana with at least 30 rounds, pockmarking the building’s facade. Within an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the robbery was gunned down on a street in Tijuana.
On 24 November, gunmen targeted the state prosecutors’ office with a barrage of gunfire; nobody was injured.
On 27 November, a state detective under investigation for the theft was shot dead in his car while filling it with gas at a station in Tijuana.
An employee of the state prosecutors’ office – who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity – confirmed this week that two of the officers under investigation in the scandal had been shot and killed in broad daylight on the city’s streets.
The employee said the second officer declined an offer for a spot in the state witness protection program in return for testifying in the case.
Capella, the former police chief, said at least three other police officers have been killed since the heist, suggesting the cartel may have launched a generalized retribution for the theft.
“This is very worrisome,” Capella said. “Tijuana has never seen anything of this scale and that’s saying a lot.”
Tijuana is no stranger to violence and corruption, but the roots of the city’s current round of violence date back to 2017, when murders practically doubled, rising from 919 in 2016 to 1,782 in 2017. Observers say turf battles between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, and other groups – like remnants of the old Arellano Felix gang – are largely to blame.
In June, the city’s mayor, Montserrat Caballero, announced she had decided to live at an army base for her own safety after receiving threats.