It looks like Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftist president of Mexico, is moving away from his “hugs, not bullets” strategy for combating violent crime in the nation, which the country’s famed drug cartels have fueled.
This week, bizarre photographs emerged of thousands of Mexican military undertaking a large-scale operation to apprehend Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of famed Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin Guzmán Loera, popularly known as “El Chapo.” This operation was a clear indication of AMLO’s change in approach.
A large-scale operation was necessary because in 2019, when the Mexican military had Ovidio Guzmán in custody, they released him after being attacked by hundreds of highly armed cartel shooters who threatened to slaughter families and overwhelm the army.
The original thoughts of AMLO were similar to those of some Americans who do not want to increase violent conflicts with criminal organizations and think the war on drugs has been futile.
Security specialist and National Autonomous University of Mexico professor Ral Benitez told The Wall Street Journal that President Pea Nieto’s recent move signals the end of that line of thought.
He added that those ideas of “hugs, not guns” are being left in López Obrador’s wake. This demonstrates that the approach taken to reduce crime was ineffective and unsustainable.
During the 3,500-person operation, ten troops and 19 cartel members were killed, and 35 soldiers were injured. Twenty-plus members of the drug cartel were apprehended, and many others were. Over two dozen armored vehicles and dozens of firearms were taken in the raid.
While “things have improved,” a U.S. official told the Journal, “there is still a good bit of skepticism on both sides.”
Infamous Mexican cartel lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who killed a U.S. federal agent in 1985, was apprehended by an elite Mexican military squad this summer.
The American official remarked, “Caro Quintero helped a lot; this will assist a lot.”
After being convicted of the murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and sentenced to 40 years in jail, Quintero was released because serving only 28 years after a judge in Mexico declared that he should have been prosecuted in a federal, rather than a state, court.
Quintero went into hiding and remained on the run for over a decade when Mexican authorities sought to retry the case.
As soon as Quintero was released from jail, he allegedly began reassembling his drug cartel, despite the United States government placed a $20 million bounty on his head.
A fentanyl manufacturer for the cartels told the Journal, however, that the recent arrest of a prominent player in the drug trade will have little effect.
He promised that if the government stops now, “there won’t be any more violence.” Minor tweaks will be made to the cartel’s status quo, but otherwise, it will remain as before.