EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police blame a new spate of violence on a fight among criminal organizations for control of crystal meth sales in Juarez, Mexico.
At least nine men and women were murdered between Thursday night and early Friday morning, Juarez officials said on Friday. The violence comes two weeks after the killings of 23 people in an 18-hour period that occurred in places where authorities alleged crystal meth was sold.
“What happened last night is regrettable,” said Juarez Municipal Public Safety Director Cesar Omar Muñoz. “We are analyzing what is happening. Twenty days ago, (the attacks) were in the morning, now it happened after 10 p.m. […] The issue of ‘crystal’ was a factor in the homicides last night.”
Munoz said the municipal police has stepped up its patrols and called on the Mexican army to deter more violence and has arrested four individuals in connection with the most recent murders.
Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar spoke to reporters on Friday morning, saying his city experienced a “complicated night.”
“We continue with the hypothesis this is about differences over the sale of crystal. We believe there are criminal groups in a dispute over this,” Perez Cuellar said. “What we believe is that these (latest) acts, like the ones earlier in the month, are directly linked to crystal sales.”
Crystal meth is a powerful and addictive synthetic stimulant which typically resembles tiny “blue rocks,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. It is also called “ice,” “glass,” or “rock.” It can accelerate the heart and cause other health problems.
Earlier in July, municipal and state authorities said the transfer of 120 leaders and members of the Doblados or Artistas Asesinos gang from a Juarez jail to prisons farther south in the state of Chihuahua created a vacuum in control over drug sales that other criminal groups quickly sought to grasp.
Juarez officials on Friday declined to name the gangs or transnational criminal organizations behind the violence.
While the latest murder spree involved fewer victims than the events of July 10 and July 11, the violence this time was spread all over the city, Muñoz said.
Juarez has recorded 89 homicides in July as of Friday.
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