Today the CISEN (a Mexican federal agency equivalent to the CIA) published a report with the drug war statistics for the last 4 years. President Felipe Calderon intensified the war against the drug cartels 4 years ago when he took office.
28,000 dead
963 gun battles on the street between the army and cartels (almost one per day)
Now the good news:
34,699 cartel vehicles have been confiscated
several billion dollars have been confiscated
The average cop salary of $250/month has been increased to fight corruption.
Unfortunately the situation is getting worse. This year’s dead toll will be much higher than the previous by a few thousand dead. The same happened last year and the year before last.
Other developments that are new for 2010:
the use of a car bomb for the first time (a body with a fake police uniform was left on the street, when medics and police came to investigate a car was blown via cell phone)
the use of inmates to commit killings. Inmates were given weapons and driven at night in cars owned by the jail to commit killings for the cartels. It was until a rival cartel posted on youtube a video of the confession of a policeman about these operations (while being tortured and then shot dead) that the federal government took action and apprehended the officials running the jail. The last killing by inmates resulted in 17 dead at a party.
the theft of oil, gas and petrochemicals by cartels to export to the US. In Tamaulipas, on May 23rd, members of Los Zetas hijacked the natural gas field Gigante Uno in the Burgos basin, holding five PEMEX workers as hostages to prevent authorities from coming in. The group was siphoning fuel for an entire month before the Mexican army decided to enter and engage with the gunmen on June 24th. PEMEX did not disclose any information about the hijacking until media pressure drew national and international attention to the incident.
BTW I believe that as a tourist the chances of getting killed in TJ are not higher than a few years back. The chances of getting mugged or kidnapped are probably a little higher than a few years ago because there are less tourists.
