Drugs and Violence get along really well -- Mexico

 A Mexican drug cartel filmed horrific footage of some 17 mourners being lined up against a wall and shot. The best addiction treatment center in Lahore has observed the situation.

The victims are seen pressed against the wall, holding their hands behind their heads, before the gunmen massacre them.

According to local reports, cartel members killed between 10 and 17 people at a funeral in the town of San José de Gracia in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

The massacre came just two weeks after nine people, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed in two attacks in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez as they mourned their deaths in prison.

The Sunday's Attack

In Sunday's attack, the suspects arrived at the scene in broad daylight, dragged the victims outside, and then pinned them against a wall.

Video footage taken by a local resident, whose name will not be released for security reasons, shows the mourners lined up against the wall with their hands above their heads, surrounded by men with rifles.

The gunmen positioned themselves around a vehicle in the street and then opened fire on the victims. The shots were abruptly cut off and then switched to where the mourners were.  

The victims can be seen lying on the ground and smoke from the gunfire rising upwards.

The massacre took place in an area where parts of the Cartel New Generation Jalisco (CJNG), the Nueva Familia Michoacana gang, and the Knights Templar cartel have been involved in illegal activities and territorial wars.

According to the Michoacan Ministry of Public Security (SSP), a unit of the National Guard and Mexican soldiers rushed to the scene after the shooting was reported.

According to the prosecutor's office, the crime scene was "recently cleaned up" and "no victims have been found."

However, containers of cleaning products and firearm cartridges of various calibers were found inside.

Police also found a motorcycle and two vehicles that had been damaged by gunfire during the attack.

Investigations are continuing.

Meanwhile, on February 12, an armed group killed nine people at a vigil and funeral.

According to a BBC report, gunmen first stormed a house where friends and relatives were gathered for the funeral of a prisoner who died a week earlier and shot dead two women and a man.  

They then moved on to the burial site of the same prisoner and killed six more people. Among the dead were a 12-year-old boy and his father.    

The state of Michoacán has the third-highest murder rate in 2021, with 2,732 murders recorded, according to the government.

Mexico recorded 33,308 murders in 2021 after the two most violent years in the country's history: 34,690 in 2019 and 34,554 in 2020.

In the state of Michoacan, the region's agricultural wealth, avocados, is being fought over, with organized crime groups competing for it through robberies, kidnappings, and extortion.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration restricted imports from Mexico after cartel groups made death threats against US health inspectors.

Mexico's ban on avocado imports, which prevented shipments from Michoacan, the only state allowed to export avocados to the US, was reinstated days later after new measures were put in place to ensure the safety of US inspectors.

In early February, before the incident with the inspectors, the Mexican army entered Aguililla without using force.

Since then, the army has patrolled several towns in Michoacan state, leaving bullet holes, barricades, graffiti on walls reading "CJNG" and other graffiti left by traffickers. 

According to the Mexican press, the U.S. imposed the ban after members of the Mexican cartel threatened to kill U.S. health inspectors and demanded that they sign up to buy avocados in bulk on their black market.

According to local newspapers, the scam began with Cartales Unidos stamping avocados from the central state of Puebla as if they were grown and packed in Michoacán.

A U.S. health inspector and agricultural technicians from the U.S. Department of Agriculture at a packing plant in Uruapan saw them and refused to sign, El Blog del Narco reported.

In response, a gang of criminals hijacked a U.S. Department of Agriculture truck in the town of Zirakuaretiro on Friday and beat up a group of agricultural technicians, La Opinión reported.

They then called the U.S. health inspector and threatened to kill him if he did not sign for the last shipment of avocados. Mexican and U.S. authorities did not disclose the exact context of the phone call.

The gangs get a cut of avocado exports, so if a shipment doesn't pass inspection, their profits go down.

Sinaloa Cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel, founded in 1989 by Héctor Palma, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, is today one of the most notorious transnational drug trafficking organizations. The cartel is based in 15 of Mexico's 32 states but has also expanded to the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America.

While El Chapo is in prison, the cartel is plagued by a battle between Zambada and three of El Chapo's four sons, known as "Los Chapitos."

The DEA considers the Sinaloa Cartel to be one of the two main criminal organizations, along with the rival New Generation Jalisco Cartel.

How drugs enter the U.S.: "Illicit drugs distributed by the Sinaloa Cartel are smuggled into the U.S., primarily through border crossings along the [southwest border]. The cartel hires guards at the ports and controls smuggling corridors into the U.S. in Arizona and California.