JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – One-hundred and twenty incarcerated members of a violent Juarez gang have been transferred out of the city as authorities worry about them stirring up trouble beyond their confines.
More than 400 Mexican soldiers, National Guard members and Chihuahua state police officers entered Cereso No. 3 prison Sunday night and herded all known members of the Artistas Asesinos or Doblados gang into waiting buses.
“The principal objective is to reduce potential risks from organized criminal groups and reestablish order inside Cereso No. 3 prison,” Chihuahua Public Safety Director Gilberto Loya said on Monday.
Local police and security analysts have told Border Report Artistas Asesinos povides foot soldiers and enforcers for major drug cartels operating in Juarez.
The state police last year arrested six ‘Doblados’ in connection with a triple murder. And on December 2023 they took into custody three more, including a woman they accused of ordering the killings of 21 people in Juarez and later dismembering their bodies.
Loya said a fight inside the prison last week precipitated a full search of the facility, followed days later by the transfer.
“We want to send a message to all gangs that operate inside and outside the prison: We will not tolerate (unlawful) actions,” he said. “The reaction to any action that breaks the rules will be blunt, whether they operate inside or outside” a prison.
He said 90 of the gang members were sent to a prison in Chihuahua City and the remaining 30 to Parral, Mexico.
Cereso No. 3 prison was the site of a bloody prison escape on New Year’s Day 2023. That’s when armed intruders burst into the facility, killed 10 prison guards, seven inmates and freed 30 others, including Mexicles gang leader Ernesto Pinon de la Cruz, a.k.a. El Neto, who was later killed by police.
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