Drug lords go on killing spree to hunt down corrupt officers who stole shipment in Mexico's Tijuana

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.

Two of the officers suspected of the theft have been killed, prosecutors say. But so have at least three other officers, according to the city's former police chief, suggesting the cartel believed to have owned the drugs may have launched a generalised retribution.

It is the latest blow for Tijuana which has the most homicides of any city in Mexico, with about double the number of the place that comes second — the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Tijuana, situated in the border state of Baja California and with a population of over 2.1 million, has for several years seen around 2,000 murders annually. By comparison, Houston, Texas, which has about the same population, saw 435 killings in 2022.

According to prosecutors, in mid-November, a half-dozen local and state police officers in Tijuana allegedly hatched a plot to steal a large shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers were storing it.

Video emerged last week of the officers' pickup truck pulling out of the building with big, plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the truck bed.

State Prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade confirmed this week that three state detectives were under investigation in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police.

Alberto Capella, the former head of Tijuana's police force from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told The Associated Press that the cache of drugs appeared to have belonged to the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the wing controlled by drug lord Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, probably the most powerful gang in town.

Apparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who had pulled off the heist.

On November 18, just hours after the theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors' office in Tijuana with at least 30 rounds, pockmarking the building's façade. Within an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the heist was gunned down on a street in Tijuana.

On November 24, gunmen targeted the state prosecutors' office with a barrage of gunfire; nobody was injured.

On November 27, a state detective under investigation for the theft was gunned down in his car while filling it with gas at a station in Tijuana. It seemed the officer saw the attack coming, and was able to start his car and advance a few feet before hitting a column and collapsing dead at the wheel. The attackers fled on a motorcycle.

An employee of the state prosecutors' office — who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk publicly about the case — confirmed this week that two of the officers under investigation in the scandal had been shot and killed in broad daylight on the city's streets, in apparent gangland revenge.

The employee said the second officer declined an offer for a spot in the state witness protection programme in return for testifying in the case.

Capella, the former police chief, said at least three other police officers have been killed since the heist, suggesting the cartel may have launched a generalised retribution for the theft.

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