Cancún under first "Red Alert" in its history, while authorities focus on local Los Zetas-Gulf Cartel links

Military units, state and local police will be under integrated control to confront Q.R. regional violence


*Updated Apr. 13*
Cancún, Quintana Roo -
The entire city of Cancún was placed under a municipal security "Red Alert" yesterday morning for the first time in its history. The action followed two drug war murders in the preceding 24 hours, and a brutal machine gun attack at a bar last week which left seven people dead.

The alert means that military forces and federal, state and local police will operate under integrated control.

In early March regional authorities announced Operation Boots on the Ground, the centerpiece of which is the deployment of federal troops in popular Quintana Roo tourist spots such as Cancún, Cozumel, Isla de Mujeres and Playa del Carmen (Cancún prepares for influx of spring breakers with strong display of military muscle). But the presence of heavily armed units has had no measurable impact on relentless narco violence up and down the Riviera Maya coast.

The municipality of Benito Juárez, the largest county in Quintana Roo state and essentially defined by the city limits of Cancún, has not previously been under such an alert. The use of military troops in coordinated operations with state and local police units is a key strategy of the administration of president Enrique Peña Nieto, who assumed office Dec. 1. Mexican armed forces were dispatched into this country's 75 month old drug war by his predecessor, former president Felipe Calderón, on Dec. 11, 2006. Peña Nieto is following the same strategy, with slight cosmetic changes, for lack of any other option. One of those minor changes has been to divide Mexico into five security districts, to enhance cooperation and coordination between federal, regional and local forces. The latter are often outgunned and under trained - and sometimes corrupt themselves, due to narco infiltration.

Although many had erroneously predicated that the new president would abandon the use of military forces in the war against drug cartels and organized crime, Peña Nieto has promised to do just the opposite, by creating a national gendarmerie of 40,000 paramilitaries and enlarging Mexico's federal police by 35,000. But earlier this week in Rome, where he joined world leaders for the inaugural Mass of Pope Francis, the president - who campaigned on a promise to dramatically reduce violence in the first 100 days of his administration - acknowledged that significant results were a year or more away.

Both of Cancún's latest drug war executions appear to be yet further cases of an "adjustment of accounts" between warring regional cartels and organized crime groups, which MGR has covered since 2011 (Two cartels unite to declare war on Los Zetas in Cancún, foreshadowing a "bloodbath").

Meanwhile, authorities announced yesterday that three Cancún taxi drivers have been arrested and charged with the September 2012 murder of two men - probably independent drug dealers - whose bodies were dumped in the hotel district, considered the city's safest region (Two executed in Cancún hotel zone). Quintana Roo's governor told a press conference last week that some of the city's 17,000 taxi drivers are on cartel payrolls, selling drugs or earrying out executions as sicarios (hired gunmen). Gov. Roberto Borge Angulo said it will take authorities a long time to weed them out.

One of the three men arrested yesterday told police he was paid 5,000 pesos a week - $400 USD - to act as a driver for a boss of the Los Zetas cartel whom authorities are are seeking in several homicide cases. All the men claimed they are members of the Zetas, but there is evidence they may have been in the service of the Gulf Cartel as well. Quintana Roo's chief prosecutor said recently that he believes some Zetas have defected and gone over to the Gulf Cartel, or are working both sides of the fence (Q.R. prosecutor confirms: Gulf Cartel likely behind three recent Riviera Maya atrocities).

All the men belonged to the same drivers' union which was the subject of a March 14 attack against La Sirenita, a Cancún bar. Seven people were killed by AK-47 wielding gunmen in that early evening assault, which was one factor in yesterday's decision to place the city under an unprecedented Red Alert (Machine gun attack on Cancún tavern leaves seven dead).

Mar. 16 - Cancún woes
Mar. 21 - Although Yucatán peninsula safety is debatable, Gov. Borge insisted the region is the safest in Mexico, even as its primary tourist destination was placed under special security alert.
Apr. 13 - Cancún proper has recorded 25 organized crime executions so far in 2013. The most recent victims were these two young men, shot to death on Thursday afternoon by a narco execution team. Their offense? Being chapulines, or independent drug retailers who refused to affiliate with one of the several major cartels operating along the Riviera Maya coast.

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