Standing guard at the scene of the crime, the two police officers surveyed the shattered glass and bullet-pocked bodywork of the Mercedes Benz hatchback and offered their analysis. As the officers spoke, a group of children kicked a football just beyond the yellow crime scene tape, and customers wandered unperturbed in and out of a row of shops. Only an hour before gunmen on a motorcycle had opened fire on the car which crashed into the side of a health clinic; miraculously the two occupants survived.
Manzanillo and the surrounding state of Colima were once best known for their black sand beaches, lime groves and a smoldering volcano that erupts every century or so.
Over the past year, however, the region has claimed a new title: murder capital of Mexico. According to federal figures, Colima registered homicides in the first nine months of β a huge number in a population of just , Local officials blame the killings on outsiders or describe it as score-settling between petty criminals.
Ten years of a militarised campaign against the cartels has not ended the trade in drugs, or helped enforce rule of law in Mexico. It has, however, weakened or splintered several crime factions, leaving a handful of powerful survivors fighting for the spoils. It emerged in following a fight for the spoils of a prominent Sinaloa cartel boss, Nacho Coronel, who was killed by the army , and for the past five years or so it has used Manzanillo to import chemical precursors from Asia for the production of methamphetamines.
Vega said the cartel was well entrenched β both in the rugged Sierras where it produces heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines, and in the corridors of power, where it maintains connections at all levels of government.
