Sitting on a rock in a street on the outskirts of Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border, Poison and Malandro share a cigarette as they reminisce. They met just two weeks before but have been inseparable since. Like countless other migrants who’ve settled in Tapachula, they were part of the gang wars in Central America before fleeing to Mexico.
This friendship could never have formed if they had met in El Salvador, where Poison is from, or Honduras, where Malandro grew up. In those places, they would have likely taken out a pistol, a machete, or a knife, and drawn blood.
Both of them are members of Central America’s infamous street gangs, which have waged one of Latin America’s longest running gang wars. Poison is with the MS13, and Malandro is part of the Barrio 18. Both arrived in Tapachula after fleeing their countries.
Now, every night, they go out to smoke together on the same rock in front of the migrant shelter where they live. They talk of old times in their neighborhoods, where they decided who could enter and who could not; who paid extortion and who did not; who lived and who died.
But since they arrived here in February 2023, they both live under the control of something much more powerful than anything their gangs can impose.
Poison and Malandro now live in a neighborhood where it is clear who is in charge: “Los Señores,” they explain, using the euphemism, which, roughly translated, means “The Bosses.” The bosses are the drug traffickers, members of the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).
Tapachula has a complex criminal landscape. And while street gangs like the MS13 and Barrio 18 once had a strong influence over extortion, street-level drug sales, and migrant smuggling here, these gangs are now pawns in a larger game.
If the border city’s role as a migration hub once helped sustain those street gangs, it is now sustaining two of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking groups and contributing to an ongoing conflict between them.
Tapachula: The Migrant Corridor
It is impossible to understand Tapachula without understanding migration.
The city is located on Mexico’s southern border in the state of Chiapas, a little less than 20 kilometers from the Suchiate River, which separates the country from Guatemala. Over time, it has become an obligatory transit point for thousands of Central American migrants trying to reach the United States. It has a sound highway system, solid roads, and two ports that face the Pacific Ocean. What’s more, it is the first stop of an infamous cargo train known as “La Bestia,” or the Beast, which connects this southern region to the center of Mexico.
Almost 390,000 people from 102 different countries requested asylum in Mexico between 2021 and 2023. Of those, 60% made the request in Tapachula, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comisión Mexicana de Ayuda a Refugiados – COMAR). The true number of migrants that pass through this city is likely double or triple the government’s figures, according to local activists who work with migrants. They say the majority of migrants pass through without leaving any official trace.
Migration has also impacted Tapachula in other ways. Various MS13 and Barrio 18 cliques operate around the city. Although the power they wield is a fraction of what they exercise in many neighborhoods across Central America, the gang has a strong presence in some local areas like Indeco, Buenos Aires, and 16 de Septiembre. In these spaces, InSight Crime met several young gang members like Poison and Malandro, some of whom wore T-shirts and jerseys with the numbers “13” and “18” as an ode to their gang affiliation.
Over the years, restrictive immigration policies established by the US government and enforced by Mexico have prevented scores of migrants from reaching the United States. Many are returned or simply wait for their chance to cross at different points along the way, such as Tapachula. Some are sent back to their countries of origin, but make their way back to Tapachula.
SEE ALSO: How US Policy Foments Organized Crime on US-Mexico Border
The new dynamic has transformed the city. A large part of both the formal and informal economy survives from migration. Businesspeople, informal vendors, taxi drivers, hotel owners, hostel workers, restaurants, public officials, and shelter directors said that if the migrants disappeared from the city, the local economy would collapse.
But where there are people, there is money. And where there is money, there are criminal groups ready to take advantage.
Lowest Rungs of the Underworld
One night in mid-February, Poison was cleaning the bathrooms at one of the biggest and most important shelters in Tapachula.
During the day, the shelter was practically empty. Many migrants worked, while others went to the local migration offices to move their bureaucratic processes along. Some migrants simply escaped the confines of the shelter to get some fresh air. But during the evenings, the shelter filled up again. Most talked or watched television as they sat on the floor of the main living room, trying their best to escape the suffocating heat that is common in this region. Others, however, sought refuge in the bathrooms. Poison’s job was to keep them clean and make sure that nobody took drugs or had sex inside.
It was mostly an uneventful posting and gave him a chance to mingle with his friends. Although much more responsible than during his gang heyday, Poison could still be mischievous. That side of him showed up that day, when three other Hondurans, including Malandro, approached Poison with money in their hands. They spoke softly as they pooled their bills and discreetly handed Poison a small wad of pesos. He grabbed the money and put it into a bag.
“I can run out, but you all have to watch the bathrooms,” said Poison.
“Bring back the good stuff,” they told him.
Around the shelter, the Barrio 18 handles petty drug sales like this. Poison, who knows these dealers, looked at the time on his cell phone and left. He returned about 20 minutes later with two small plastic bags containing a white powder. It was cocaine.
“I’ll go first,” he said before venturing into the bathroom.
After a few seconds and a couple of strong, audible snorts, Poison reemerged smiling.
His work cleaning the bathrooms at the shelter is long and tiring, he explained. Poison said he needed something stronger than coffee to stand guard all day.
“I usually get marijuana, but here you can’t smoke because the smell is too strong. So you have to find something more discreet,” he said.
For years, a small clique made up of Hondurans, Salvadorans, and some Mexicans has made small-time drug dealing their main income source in the neighborhood where the migrant shelter is located. They also keep some semblance of order.
“If there’s a problem with somebody acting crazy from Honduras or El Salvador who has been a gang member there, the boss calls them over and quickly takes care of things,” Poison said.
Still, within Tapachula’s broader criminal landscape, gang members like Poison and Malandro have limited power. In fact, they occupy the lowest rungs of the underworld.
‘Two Letters’ v. ‘Four Letters’
A few blocks from where Poison purchased the two small bags of cocaine from the Barrio 18 that night, there is a bodega blocked off by yellow police tape used to protect the crime scene. It marked a drug bust, not a murder. Months earlier, Mexico’s armed forces seized 200 kilograms of cocaine there.
Authorities said the drugs were the property of the CJNG. This was new. In years past, all the cocaine coming through this corridor was managed by the CJNG’s rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel.
“There’s a war being waged right now in Tapachula,” Topo, a local journalist who has spent more than 20 years as a journalist covering crime and police in southern Chiapas, told InSight Crime.
SEE ALSO: What Is Behind the Criminal Conflict Raging in Chiapas, Mexico?
Topo is thin with dark brown skin. Though he spoke confidently, there was an air of apprehension, and he asked that we not use his full name. At a fancy restaurant in the north of Tapachula, he spoke quietly as he scanned the room from side to side. He referred to the criminal groups as “the two letters” and “the four letters.”
These groups are like two monsters battling for control of the city — two powerful enemies he wouldn’t dare mention by name. Instead, with small gestures and notes on a piece of paper, he makes clear they are the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG.
“They’ve already arrived, and it’s going to get ugly,” explained Topo.
The war between the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG began years ago. But the fighting came to a head in 2021 when the CJNG started to move into key Sinaloa Cartel strongholds in the north, such as the municipalities of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Tuxtla Gutiérrez. They soon pushed south into municipalities like Frontera Comalapa along the border, as well as into the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango.
This has led to a rise in violence in areas surrounding Tapachula, especially in Frontera Comalapa. In May 2023, for example, more than 3,000 people were displaced from their homes after armed gunmen in homemade armored trucks threatened locals and forcibly recruited the men into their ranks. A couple of months later, a group of hitmen riding on a motorcycle shot up the local police station in Tapachula. Afterward, authorities said the gunmen belonged to the CJNG.
The man spearheading the CJNG incursion into Chiapas, according to internal Mexican army (Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional – SEDENA) reports obtained by an anonymous group of hackers known as “Guacamaya” and reviewed by InSight Crime, is Juan Manuel Valdovinos Mendoza, alias “El Señor de los Caballos,” or the “Lord of the Horses.” In Guatemala, the group has apparently established an alliance with the Huistas, a Guatemalan criminal group that traffics cocaine and operates in Huehuetenango.
“The [CJNG] wants to take the plaza from the [Sinaloa Cartel],” explained Topo.
‘Nobodies’
It wasn’t always this way. In the early 2000s, the MS13 and Barrio 18 established small cliques in some of the city’s neighborhoods. Their power was such that in 2004 the MS13 assumed control of this migration route. The gang extorted migrants who hopped onto La Bestia to travel north. They threw those who did not pay off the top of the train, leaving many migrants mangled and dead on the tracks.
These days, however, gang members like Poison and Malandro do not toss people from trains, or dictate who can enter their neighborhood, or run extortion rackets.
“The MS13 and Barrio 18 are nobodies here,” said Azul, a police officer with more than 20 years of experience working in the city and who requested anonymity due to security reasons.
“They have no power. At most, they do little jobs for the narcos, but they don’t have any control. They sell drugs they buy from the narcos and help smuggle migrants, but they don’t go beyond that,” he added.
Even though Tapachula is not among the most important cities for Mexican drug traffickers, its geographic location on the border has made it a natural passageway for drugs flowing north to the United States. The gangs also contribute.
“They sell drugs on the street. And you can see it in the increase in places where they sell drugs here in the city,” said Azul.
While the average number of official investigations of street-level drug dealing in Chiapas has dropped considerably, according to official data, this does not mean it has stopped. Over the course of a few hours in a neighborhood where gang members from the MS13 and Barrio 18 sell drugs, InSight Crime observed retail sales taking place, even in the presence of the municipal police.
Tapachula forms part of the so-called “Pacific Route” for drug traffickers, according to SEDENA. The route begins in Ciudad Hidalgo, on the border with Guatemala in Chiapas, and continues through Tapachula, Huixtla, Villa Comaltitlán, Acapetahua, Mapastepec, Pijijiapan, and Tonalá near the border with Oaxaca.
The Sinaloa Cartel once controlled this route. But starting in 2021, the CJNG began to move in, according to the SEDENA documents. The reports mark the July 2021 murder of a top Sinaloa Cartel operator, Ramón Gilberto Rivera Beltrán, alias “El Junior,” as the turning point.
The killing caused a “power vacuum” and “fracturing” within the Sinaloa Cartel, creating a perfect opportunity for the group’s counterpart to make a play on this strategic corridor.
Extreme violence has become constant. The most recent examples of this war are in the municipalities of Chicomuselo and Frontera Comalapa, where local communities are under a state of siege. Who enters and leaves town is strictly controlled, as is the flow of goods and services, according to residents and local activists who work there.
Local criminal groups have been co-opted and put to work in all of the municipalities where the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG have influence. They wage war and collect payment on behalf of the larger groups.
This is also the case in Tapachula. Since the start of 2024, the dead bodies of several human smugglers have appeared in the center of the city with their hands and feet tied, and duct tape placed over their mouths. Messages were left on their bodies.
“This is what will happen to the [smugglers] who do not pay,” read one.
This is yet another burgeoning criminal economy that can pay the bills to fight this war.
Migration: The New Criminal Economy
Traditional drug trafficking groups saw a business opportunity amid the growing number of migrants passing through Mexico with hopes of reaching the United States. This was especially true in Tapachula, where such proceeds are likely helping to sustain the war being waged between the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG.
Migration is now an important source of income for Mexico’s drug trafficking groups in this southern border city. Over several months, InSight Crime spoke to two coyotes, or human smugglers, who have helped transport migrants for more than a decade. Both explained how they are forced to pay around half of their earnings to crime groups.
“I charge between $9,000 and $11,000 USD. It depends on how you want to travel. Of that, I spend around $6,000 to pay off organized crime. You tell me, what do you think that money is for? Weapons,” one of the smugglers told InSight Crime.
Although he doesn’t work directly with organized crime groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG, the smuggler said part of the money the migrants pay for the journey must be handed over.
“You pay per head and the fees can range depending on who is in charge, but no matter what, I’m always paying between $6,000 and $8,000,” he explained.
Even though the MS13 once controlled the freight train migrants so often used to traverse this part of southern Mexico, they have lost all their influence, according to Azul, the police officer. The street gangs remain an imposing force in Central America, but they have been severely overshadowed by the power drug traffickers have amassed in Tapachula.
“We’ve had cases where [gang members] have smuggled people from Guatemala, but the majority of those being smuggled are fellow gang members. They bring gang members fleeing from there, Honduras, and El Salvador,” explained Azul.
Not paying the tax required by groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG can have severe consequences, including kidnapping, torture, and possibly death. In May 2023, 49 migrants, including 11 children, were kidnapped from the private bus they had boarded in Tapachula en route to the US-Mexico border.
After about a week, authorities found the migrants, alive, in central Mexico. Some of them said they had been kidnapped by a drug trafficking group that demanded ransom. It’s not clear if the migrants paid.
“Now [drug traffickers] are realizing just how big the business is. Everyone wants their piece. And the bigger the piece, the better,” said one of the smugglers.
Feature image: Parts of this image were created using artificial intelligence.