Posted on 12/02/2017 6:39:58 PM PST by Eddie01
Members of the Viagras cartel videotaped a rival hitman confessing to sins in the western Mexican state of Michoacán last Thursday, then bent his neck backward over a block of wood and sawed off his head with a carving knife.
The beheading video was posted to social media, along with a warning to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). In the clip, the decapitated victim also claims to be the brother of Juan Carlos Márquez Pérez, a.k.a. El Duende (The Goblin), a CJNG operative arrested back in 2015.
In a separate incident on Tuesday of last week, two more severed heads were found in a cooler at a television station in the nearby city of Guadalajara. The heads were accompanied by a note signed by the CJNG and addressed to a high-ranking police officer. Another cartel cooler was left at the federal courthouse building that same day, but officials refused to disclose the contents.
Mexican mafiosos appear to have borrowed the practice of beheading their enemies from Middle Eastern terrorists such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). Decapitations in Mexico have risen dramatically over the last several years due to their perceived shock factor. Head cutting has become the signature move for crime groups looking to intimidate opposing factions, pressure law enforcement, and cow local citizens.
There have been dozens of beheadings by the cartels in 2017, which is on pace to be the bloodiest year in the countrys decade-long Drug War. (October, the latest month for which there are statistics, saw the homicide rate rise to an average of almost 90 murders per day.)
One recent, high-profile decapitation case involved the discovery of two headsand fourteen additional dead bodiesin the popular resort area of Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, last June. In another incident, the freshly removed cabezas of two men and a woman were found inside decorative sombreros during the run-up to the nations Independence Day in Veracruz state.
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Last weeks brutal decollation video was filmed in the scorching valley called Tierra Caliente (The Hot Lands). Located smack in the middle of the troubled state of Michoacán, the Hot Lands are claimed by both the home-grown Viagras cartel and the invading CJNG from neighboring Jalisco state.
The valley and surrounding mountains are home to large-scale drug production and shipping zones, and the local timber and mining industries provide lucrative sources for extortion, making Tierra Caliente a prize worth fighting over for both crime syndicates.
In a 2016 interview Viagras leader Nicolás El Gordo (The Fat One) Sierra admitted his outfit was fighting a crusade against the CJNG, which is now reported to be Mexicos largest cartel. According to experts, the recent video segment could indicate the gang from Jalisco might have Sierra and his sicarios (hitmen) on the ropes.
This execution video is definitely out of character for the Viagras and appears to be an escalation in their use of violence [against] the CJNG cartel, said security analyst Robert Bunker, who teaches at the U.S. Army War College, in an interview.
A safe guess would be that their fight with CJNG may not be going well and they see the need to ramp up the terror against that group in order to better protect their territories and illicit interests, Bunker said.
Gustavo Fondevila, a professor who specializes in organized crime at Mexico Citys Center for Economic Research and Teaching, said such trophy killings are often aimed at controlling the black-market economy.
Beheading captured members of a rival cartel has a direct effect on the [black] market, said Fondevila, who went on to call decapitation a technique of conquest aimed at a given geographic region.
The rationale of the beheadings, abuse, and torture [ . . .] is to persuade the other [cartel] to leave a place, give up, or surrender without using weapons. Its a relatively inexpensive way to win and take the market.
The method used to decollate the CJNG footsoldier in the Viagras video post, and the way it was filmed, combine to tell a menacing tale about the motive and mindset of those involved.
Beheadings where the victim is kneeling or thrown on the ground with the head lifted up to expose the neck and then beheaded beginning with a throat cut are a visceral and bloody type of execution, said Bunker, author of the book Narcoterrorism and Impunity in the Americas.
They really portray a sense of the victims heightened terror to the viewing audience as the terrorist or cartel enforcer begins working on them with a large knife, Bunker said. A shooting or stabbing execution just doesnt have the same horror.
The Viagra Cartel die hard.
Not our problem. Build the wall and send all Mexicans home and let them fix their cesspool of a country.
The chainsaw was out of fuel?
They are going BACKWARDS.
The historical anomaly was when they WEREN'T cutting each others' heads off.
Kate's Gate
San Francisco would welcome them.
Beheading ones enemy goes back thousands of years, way before Islam or ISIS.
...and if caught red handed (ba doomp, psssh), would be found NOT guilty of sawing off the head of an innocent person.
I don't mind them cutting off my head but leave my cabezas alone.
Remember that family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande......
It was an act of love........
Judge Smales -
Danny, I’ve sent boys younger than yourself to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it, felt I... owed it to ‘em.
That’s for sure. Jeanine Pirro had today a great opening statement about Kate’s case.
Shootings and stabbings no longer have the intended impact, hence the max-gore beheadings. When they become more commonplace, what else is there but holding up still-beating hearts to make their point?
You are making the assumption that they ever actually moved forward.
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