Mexico’s picturesque resorts along an 80-mile stretch of the Caribbean coast — once safe for tourists — have become a battleground for four warring drug cartels.
The violent cartels are vying for control of the area’s lucrative tourism revenue, reported to be upwards of $30 billion, private investigator Jay Armes III told Fox News Digital this week.
“It’s all horrifying to us, but to people in Mexico, it’s just a Tuesday. This happens all the time all over the country,” he said. “But now it’s happening in areas that used to be off limits.”
That’s a big change from the past. Fifteen or 20 years ago, the heads of the cartels lived by a “code similar to the Italian mob,” Mr. Armes said.
“In the old days, you weren’t allowed to target women or children. You weren’t allowed to encroach on another cartel’s territory. And the resorts were off limits. … Cartels wanted to fly under the radar as much as they could.”
“The rules have changed,” he said. “All that old guard code is out the window. The resorts are open shop.”
Four main cartels want all the business in those areas. That includes El Chapo’s old cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel; the Gulf Cartel; the Jalisco New Generation Cartel; and the Grupo Regional, a “smaller” cartel created by former Zetas, brutally violent cartel enforcers, Mr. Armes said.
The escalating violence has had dire consequences not only for local citizens but also for international tourists, including Americans, who have inadvertently become victims in the conflict. Reports of unspeakable violence and missing persons are becoming alarmingly common, as visitors face the reality of the hidden war.
Recent incidents underscore the crisis: machete-wielding cartel members gruesomely killing their rivals in Cancun, a tourist mecca; a Californian woman tragically caught and killed in the crossfire near Tulum’s popular beaches; and a harrowing story of a New York man found abducted, eyes taped shut, abandoned in a remote jungle.
The acts of violence against foreigners, particularly American tourists, have sparked rapid and “mandatory” responses from Mexican authorities, Mr. Armes told Fox. With an economy deeply dependent on tourism, government and military leaders are under pressure to maintain the facade of safety in areas that millions of international visitors flock to for their vacations.
In 2022, Mexico welcomed some 66 million international tourists, nearly 34 million from the United States alone, as per the data from Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism and Statista. Cancun International Airport, the most frequently used entry point, saw 36.1% of all international arrivals in Mexico, with travelers seeking the serenity of the country’s renowned white sand beaches, often unaware of the potential dangers lying beneath the surface.
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