La Familia Michoacana
This article needs to be updated.(April 2020) |
(Since 2004) Rural Defense Force |
La Familia Michoacana (LFM;
In July 2009 and November 2010, La Familia Michoacana offered to retreat and even disband their cartel, "with the condition that both the Federal Government, and State and Federal Police commit to safeguarding the security of the state of Michoacán."
History
Mexican analysts believe that La Familia formed in the 1980s with the stated purpose of bringing order to Michoacán, emphasizing help and protection for the poor.
La Familia came to the foreground in the 1990s as the
After the death of
In 2017, former La Familia leader Arnoldo Rueda-Medina, who was arrested in Mexico in 2009, was extradited to the United States and sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2018 after being convicted on drug trafficking charges.[26]
References to religion
La Familia cartel is sometimes described as quasi-religious since its leaders, Moreno González and Méndez Vargas, refer to their assassinations and beheadings as "divine justice."
On July 16, 2009, Servando Gómez Martínez (La Tuta), the cartel operations chief, contacted a local radio station and stated: "La Familia was created to look after the interests of our people and our family. We are a necessary evil." When asked what La Familia really wanted, Gómez replied, "The only thing we want is peace and tranquility." President Felipe Calderón's government refuses to strike a deal with the cartel and rejected their calls for dialogue.[41][42]
On April 20, 2009, about 400 Federal Police agents raided a christening party for a baby born to a cartel member.[43][44] Among the 44 detained was Rafael Cedeño Hernández (El Cede), the gang's second in command and in charge of indoctrinating the new recruits in the cartel's religious values, morals and ethics.
Alliances
In February 2010, the major cartels aligned in two factions. One was made up of the
Operations
La Familia has been known to be unusually violent.[39] Its members use murder and torture to quash rivals, while building a social base in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It once was the fastest-growing cartel in the country's drug war and is a religious cult-like group that celebrates family values.[10][47] In one incident in Uruapan in 2006, the cartel members tossed five severed heads onto the dance floor of the Sol y Sombra night club along with a message that read: "The Family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women. It doesn't kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice."[48]
Like other cartels, La Familia used the port city of
La Familia has also bought some local politicians.[51] 20 municipal officials have been murdered in Michoacán, including two mayors. Having established its authority, it then names local police chiefs.[52] In May 2009, the Mexican Federal Police detained 10 Michoacán mayors and 20 other local officials suspected of being associated with the cartel.[51]
On July 11, 2009, a cartel lieutenant—Arnoldo Rueda Medina—was arrested. La Familia members attacked the Federal Police station in Morelia to try to free Rueda shortly after his arrest. During the attacks, two soldiers and three federal policemen were killed.[53] When that failed, cartel members attacked Federal Police installations in at least a half-dozen Michoacán cities in retribution.[54]
Three days later, on July 14, 2009, the cartel tortured and murdered twelve Mexican Federal Police agents and dumped their bodies along the side of a mountain highway along with a written message: "So that you come for another. We will be waiting for you here."[54] The federal agents were investigating crime in Michoacán state;[55] President Calderón, responded to the violence by dispatching additional 1,000 Federal Police officers to the area. The infusion, which more than tripled the number of Federal Police officers patrolling Michoacán, angered Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy Rangel, who called it 'an occupation' and said he had not been consulted. Days later, 10 municipal police officers were arrested in connection with the slayings of the 12 federal agents.[54]
The governor's half-brother Julio César Godoy Toscano, who was elected July 5, 2009 to the lower house of Congress, was accused of being a top-ranking member of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel and of providing political protection for the cartel.[54][56] Based on these charges, on December 14, 2010, Godoy Toscano was impeached from the lower house of Congress and therefore lost his parliamentary immunity; he fled and remains a fugitive.
President Calderón stated that the country's drug cartels had grown so powerful that they now posed a threat to the future of Mexican democracy. His strategy of direct confrontation and law enforcement is not popular with some segments of Mexican society, where battling violent drug gangs has brought out several human rights charges against the Mexican military.[57]
Project Coronado
On October 22, 2009, U.S. federal authorities announced the results of a four-year investigation into the operations of La Familia Michoacana in the United States dubbed Project Coronado. It was the largest U.S. raid ever against
Since the start of "Project Coronado," the investigation has led to the arrest of more than 1,186 people and the seizure of approximately $33 million. Overall, almost 2 metric tons (2.2 short tons) of cocaine, 1,240 kilograms (2,730 lb) of methamphetamine, 13 kilograms (29 lb) of heroin, 7,430 kilograms (16,380 lb) of marijuana, 389 weapons, 269 vehicles, and the two drug labs were seized.[58]
Multi-agency investigations such as Project Coronado were the key to disrupting the operations of complex criminal organizations like La Familia. The investigative efforts in Project Coronado were coordinated by the multi-agency Special Operations Division, comprising agents and analysts from the DEA, FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Marshals Service and ATF, as well as attorneys from the Criminal Division's Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section. More than 300 federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies contributed investigative and prosecutorial resources to Project Coronado through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.[61]
Project Delirium
In July 2011, the United States Department of Justice announced that a 20-month-long operation known as "Project Delirium" had resulted in more than 221 arrests of La Familia cartel members in the United States, along with significant seizures of cash, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. Outside of the United States, the operation resulted in the arrest of more than 1,900 members. Cartel members were arrested across the United States, and face charges in Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C.[62] This announcement came just a month after Mexican authorities announced the capture of cartel leader José de Jesús Méndez Vargas.[63]
The Interstate 75 Connection
It has been known that La Familia has certain connections with the Flores Camargo cartel, a small drug trafficking group that operates in Atlanta. Flores Camargo moves large quantities of high grade marijuana and cocaine through the I-75 corridor for distribution in Detroit, supplying the city and its outskirts and suburbs. The local authorities haven't been able to dismantle this trafficking group because of its experience. They have made several arrests but have never been able to locate Flores Camargo's heads. It is known that two cousins originally from the Mexican state of Guanajuato run it, but no photos or names have been obtained by authorities. This shows how trafficking groups are becoming more cunning in hiding from federal authorities. The federal authorities have known that the group smuggles high grade marijuana and cocaine from Guanajuato, traveling up to the border and passing under secret tunnels. DEA agents have received tips saying the groups move up to 2 tons of high grade marijuana to a central hub in Atlanta, then up through I75 to Detroit where it is repackaged into small quantities and spread throughout the city. The money is never tracked because no bank accounts are used. This group is known to have military style weapons obtained from their cartel connections in the United States and Mexico. They show off their luxury life on social networks but the authorities don't have any evidence to arrest the two cousins or other known associates.
Knights Templar
The alleged death of
End of activity
By May 2020, all 39 non-Jalisco New Generation cartels operating in Guerrero were splinter cartels.[64] In June 2020, it was reported that the Cartel del Abuelo and Los Viagras, as well as to a lesser extent the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, were the active cartels in Michoacán.[65] Criminal activity in the State of Mexico was also now only contested by Los Rojos, dissidents from the Beltrán Leyva Organization, splinter groups from La Familia Michoacana and criminal gangs from Mexico City.[65]
See also
- List of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords
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