While Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador toured 15 rehabilitated customs facilities just south of the United States border and touted new surveillance equipment, he did not comment when asked about the criminal cartel violence in the region, Breitbart reported Monday.
"Yesterday and today, we went through customs in Matamoros, Reynosa, and Nuevo Laredo. 15 facilities are rehabilitated; surveillance equipment (X-rays) has been purchased; the national customs office and a barracks are built," he said in a Twitter post on Sunday. "All this, with an investment of close to 10 billion pesos to make transit safer and more efficient in around 500 km of the border."
Breitbart reported, however, that he only addressed recent cartel violence there by saying he "trusted" Tamaulipas Gov. Americo Villarreal Anaya to handle the situation.
"Have patience," Breitbart reported him saying as his heavily armored security detail, with armored vehicles, helicopters, and military troops, drove by reporters in the City of Matamoros, across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, Texas.
During his visit to a customs office at the port of entry in the city, Lopez Obrador did not stop to speak with local media or residents, who shouted requests for help to find missing relatives, get better working conditions, and other items, the report said.
CBS News reported May 3 that a feud between cartels resulted in violence in Matamoros with cartel members forcing middle-school students off a school bus at gunpoint, then using it as a blockade.
That violence expanded to 12 different points around the city with gunmen carjacking residents to use cars to block roadways and caused the deployment of around 700 military troops and two helicopters to the region to end the skirmishes.
One person died in the violence, the report said.
Officials told CBS News that the violence erupted as a result of two warring factions of the Gulf Cartel which had broken into two parts, one aligning with the rival Jalisco Cartel.
"There was a confrontation between rival organized crime groups," State police chief Sergio Hernando Chávez told local media at the time.
According to the report, police arrested a "top lieutenant" in the Metros faction of the Gulf Cartel, who is implicated in 23 attacks on police and another nine on military personnel, two days earlier.
The news outlet reported that the Gulf Cartel is one of Mexico's oldest crime gangs and is based in Matamoros, and has been losing strength in recent years due to internal fighting and rivals battling for lucrative drug trafficking routes into the U.S.
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