It’s getting hot here in Monterrey, and if you’ve been reading my column lately, you know I’m not talking about the weather.
Remember about the surge of military presence in the state I wrote about? Well I got to witness it first-hand and it’s not pretty. It’s one thing to see Army convoys driving around town, but it’s a whole other, much scarier, thing to see them on foot patrol right in your neighborhood, making rounds past your house, questioning your neighbors.
Here’s what happened: I was cruising with some friends around the block and the neighboring areas, or “de rol” as we say here, when we saw some PFP and Army trucks parked right on the sidewalk. We couldn’t see any soldiers, only one federale who watched us with suspicion as we drove by. We quickly hid our stash of weed and that’s when we saw them, guachos, standing in pairs on every corner of the street, packing their signature G3s, talking to people in the neighborhood, searching the local depositos and taquerias for you know what.
That was the reality check: Shit, man, the Operation is here.
There was a “house” that was busted in my hood that day. So it was a busy day for the halcones and tiendita operators, which by the way are going for more mobility this days. They gotta be on the move to avoid getting raided. That means there’s no time for slacking off.
(A quick note: You’re gonna start seeing me use Mexican slang and words more and more often, mainly to show you dipshit non-believers out there that I’m the real fucking thing. I’ve been seeing in the comments lately that people don’t seem to believe I actually live here. Some even think I’m the War Nerd. All I can say is, thanks for the honor.)
Let’s see, where was I? Oh…that’s right. Sorry, my brain’s getting sidetracked. I’m running on weed and corridos (folk drug ballads) to get into the mood to write this thing. I got up early to go to work, but decided to call in sick. I wanted to relax a bit and try out some new grass I connected. It smells good, but it’s dry, and it’s got a lot of seeds for any of you curious pot-heads reading this out there. In short, it ain’t the greatest.
Anyway, the surge is here and is making everyone nervous. I’ll have updates on that as they come in, but I want to talk about rumors of a supposed turf war emerging here. In my last dispatch, I mentioned that one of the things the War on Drugs has done in Mexico is splinter various Cartels. One such break-off group is a new semi-Cartel called La Familia Michoacana, or La FM. These guys are now in conflict with their creators, the badass zetas.
Recently, there’s been talk that zetas reinforcements are starting to pour in my city to counteract an increasing La FM presence, who are also pouring muscle into the area to take on and exterminate the zetas. (This ain’t such bad news for me and every other region with a zetas infestation problem. Those are some mean bastards, but I’m not so sure that the FMers are gonna be any better. I guess I’ll find out.)
Anyway, to me it sounded too far-fetched that La FM would come all the way out here. here. Michoacan is about 800 km south of Monterrey, and is known for its fertile weed fields (weed from there is called michoacana and is known to fuck you up), synthetic drug labs and sea ports to receive cocaine shipments. But hey, the fact that they want to come here shows that Monterrey really is an important plaza.
And so, the war is on.
Some friends that told me they weren’t going out to clubs last weekend because some of them got text messages on their mobiles warning them that La Familia was plotting to have a shoot-out in El Barrio Antiguo, the party zone of Monterrey where most clubs are located. The area code was from the neighboring state of San Luis Potosi.
There was no shootout. The narcos are good with misinformation, so I won’t believe the rumors until I see some goddamn Michoacanos carrying cuernos (AKs) in their pimped-out pick-up trucks. But a friend of mine with deeper connections to the underworld was just yesterday telling me the rumor was real, saying that La FM is here and that they already made incursions into one Municipio in the city. But I still wonder why they would come here to Monterrey, of all places. Everybody knows that this place a zeta stronghold, and one tuff place to crack. I guess the money’s worth the risk. And these guys are badass enough to take it.
I know that this is going over your heads a bit, so let me give you a brief history of the La FM clan.
