The Mexican Government Is On A Roll

Over the last month, with the capture of "El Chapo", Luis Alfredo Aguilera Esquivel, and "El 69", and the killing of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, and "El Pantera", the Mexican government has finally put the cartels on the defensive. Finally, a run of good news. It's a hard and bloody road, and the best to them:

MEXICO CITY — If nothing else, the slaying of cartel boss Nazario Moreno Gonzalez by Mexican soldiers may have burst the bubble of mysticism that had made him one of the stranger figures to emerge in the country's drug war.

...Moreno fancied himself a protector of his people and an enforcer of rules. Among other things, he forbade the use or sale of methamphetamine on his home turf, insisting that it only be shipped to the U.S. As cracked as that moral code was, it could feel like something to cling to in an often lawless land, and it made Moreno a kind of legend.

...Last year, "self-defense" militias sprang up in the rural state and threatened to confront Moreno's Knights Templar directly, given the lack of government action. Outside the village of Buenavista Tomatlan, the vigilantes trashed a shrine to Moreno.

In January, Peña Nieto sent a massive deployment of troops and federal police to avert a conflagration between the two groups. Since then, those troops and police have been rounding up suspected cartel members, often acting on tips from cooperating vigilantes.

...At the same time, the federal government said it has recently reestablished its control over the port of Lazaro Cardenas, on Michoacan's Pacific coast. The Templars long exerted a strong influence at the port, controlling the importation of drugs and methamphetamine precursors and shipping out minerals the cartel extracted from illegal mines — all major sources of income. On March 3, the government announced that it had seized 119,000 tons of illegally mined iron at the port that the cartel had been hoping to ship to China.

...Late last month, troops killed a local cartel leader named Francisco Galeana, also known as "El Pantera." A few days later, the government announced the capture of Luis Alfredo Aguilera Esquivel, a cartel member and son of Servando Gomez Martinez, a.k.a. "La Tuta," the man presumed to be the leader of the cartel's day-to-day operations.

Then, on Friday, authorities arrested 15 people on suspicion of extortion and kidnapping, including cartel leader Abraham Zamora Zamudio, also known as "El 69." The self-defense groups have applauded these law enforcement victories, which could serve to break up the cartel and lead the vigilantes to return to their homes and farms.