Groups of armed men torched vehicles and blocked roads across Mexico on Wednesday, police and local media said, as a turf war rages between the influential Jalisco New Generation drug cartel and local criminal groups.
Gunmen seized cargo trucks and set them on fire on a highway connecting Mexico City to Guadalajara, before police reported at least 18 similar cases in the neighboring states of Michoacan and Guanajuato.
A Michoacan police source said on condition of anonymity that the attacks were a reaction by Jalisco New Generation to a military operation in the area.
The fires were under control by Wednesday evening, with roads cleared and no casualties reported, according to local media.
The Mexican government declared war on drug trafficking groups in 2006 and violence has rocked the country ever since, with around 480,000 people murdered in the past 19 years.
The Jalisco New Generation cartel was designated a terrorist organization by U.S. President Donald Trump in February. The cartel, which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says has some 19,000 in its ranks, developed rapidly into an extremely violent and capable force after it split from the Sinaloa cartel following the 2010 killing of Sinaloa cartel capo Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villarreal by the military.
The group has been accused of using fake job advertisements to lure new members and of torturing and killing recruits who resist. Last month, a group of people looking for missing relatives found charred bones, shoes and clothing at a suspected training ground for the cartel.
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The Jalisco cartel is led by Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, for whom the U.S. government has offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture. Oseguera drew renewed attention this week after his image was projected as a band played at a music festival in Jalisco over the weekend.
In February, his wife, Rosalinda Gonzalez, was released from prison in Mexico after receiving a five-year sentence following her arrest in 2021 for the illicit financial operation of an organized criminal group. Her release came on the same day that 29 drug traffickers being held in Mexican prisons were sent to the United States.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
