Mexican military forces killed one cartel gunman and injured three others during a fierce clash in the capital of the border state of Tamaulipas. The clash comes at a time when rival cartels continue to fight for control of the region.
The shootout took place on Sunday early morning in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, where a convoy of cartel gunmen was moving along Adolfo Lopez Mateos Avenue, one of the city’s main roads, and they came across a convoy of Mexican soldiers. Information provided to Breitbart Texas by Mexican authorities revealed that when the gunmen spotted the military forces, they began shooting, setting off a large-scale rolling gun battle that ended near a military complex.
As additional soldiers came out and more authorities responded to the scene, the gunmen began to retreat.
Credit: Breitbart News Foundation / Cartel Chronicles
As they fled the scene, gunmen began deploying dozens of makeshift road spikes that caused some of the military and police vehicles to have tire blowouts. Once the gunmen had left, military forces tended to three wounded gunmen, whom they also placed into custody, while state investigators arrived to document the scene and handle the dead gunman.
The shootout comes at a time when residents in Ciudad Victoria have already been experiencing high levels of violence at the hands of cartel gunmen who have been extorting local businesses, kidnapping businessmen for ransom, and also carrying out forced disappearances where the victims are not heard from again. The Tamaulipas state government has largely turned a blind eye to the cartel violence in the region. Additionally, as Breitbart Texas reported, corruption has spread widely within the Tamaulipas state police apparatus, leading to a large number of officers not only working for criminal organizations, but also addicted to drugs.
Credit: Breitbart News Foundation / Cartel Chronicles
Ciudad Victoria continues to be a prized turf for criminal organizations that have been fighting for control of the region for years. Currently, the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas are the two main organizations fighting for control of the region.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas, including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” from Tamaulipas.
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