By Juan Alberto Cedillo and Ioan Grillo
On Oct. 29, as cartel thugs torched trucks across the city of Matamoros, over the Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas, a police helicopter went into action, with officers strapped in and wielding rifles. As the chopper flew low over Las Rusias, a semi-rural barrio on the banks of the Rio Grande, gunmen exchanged fire with cops and soldiers while the city and border bridges were in lockdown.
Amid the mayhem, bullets ripped into the van of a family, wounding a woman in the leg and killing a seven-year-old girl, Aranza Aidelany Pardo. An uncle said Aranza’s father and brothers had come out to yell at the helicopter crew not to shoot; he added that she was a U.S. citizen. Prosecutors from Tamaulipas state (where Matamoros is) said that initial ballistics point to the 7.62 mm shell coming from a rifle of the State Guard, which was manning the aircraft.
“It was collateral damage that we are very sorry about,” Tamaulipas security secretary Carlos Arturo Pancardo told local media. Messages condemning Aranza’s death and portraying her as an angel have been posted on social media.
While Matamoros is the historic home of the Gulf Cartel and is accustomed to gangland violence, Thursday’s trouble was shocking in its scale and in the fatalities. As well as Aranza, five other residents died from two car crashes as they drove into burned-out vehicles on the highways, the Tamaulipas government said. In total, cartel thugs robbed 52 cars and trucks to set on fire, shutting down the city at a dozen strategic points.
The mobsters kicked off what are known as “narco blockades,” after soldiers arrested an alleged Gulf Cartel leader, Axel Alfredo Cárdenas, alias “El Titán.” Troops nabbed him at about 11 am as he drove down the city’s main Pedro Cárdenas avenue in a Lamborghini with one other man.
Blockades clog up security forces and can allow gunmen to free the prisoner, which they failed to do on this occasion. They also make the government pay a painful cost for arrests, especially with civilian deaths, so it is cautious about further crackdowns.
Titan is reported to be the nephew of the alleged boss of the Gulf Cartel in Matamoros, José Alfredo Cárdenas, alias “El Contador,” or “The Accountant.” What’s more, sources in Matamoros told CrashOut that Titan oversaw the extortion operation in the city, demanding payments from businesses. Extortion is now a core source of income for the Matamoros mob, following a crackdown on human smuggling under pressure from Trump.
U.S. Involved In The Fight Against Extortion
The U.S. government has supported anti-extortion efforts in Tamaulipas with…
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