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Federal police officials told a Mexican newspaper that a sign placed in a pedestrian bridge in southern Mexico City is false, and that it has nothing to do with the Sinaloa cartel nor organized crime, and that it was meant to instill fear within the capital's population and to undermine the image of the head of the Mexico Federal District’s government, Miguel Mancera.
Mancera himself has been relentless in denying that any drug cartels or organized crime groups are operating out of Mexico City, which in the crudest terms, is a complete lie since very powerful drug trafficking groups have been operating out of the capital since at least the late 1990s.
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Mexican newspaper Milenio said on Sunday they spoke to officials who preferred to remain unnamed who told them the “narco sign” was fake. This is the third sign of its kind that has appeared in Mexico City this year warning Mancera of basically the same. They accuse police of being too corrupt and of protecting certain criminal groups.
“The sign has no feet, no arms, no head, and was not written in Sinaloa cartel language (whatever that may be), and everything indicates it was not placed by an organized crime group,” the sources told Milenio.
However, for instance, the word “plebes” is purely Sinaloan and refers to the boys and girls. Drug traffickers, for example, when gathering up a group of people to carry out an attack or protect a shipment or even just for a party, they will say “call on the plebes” or on the guys, men, gunmen or accomplices.
The sign also says toward the end that “the 'plebes' are at a 100 percent,” a phrase almost solely used in Sinaloa, and it translates to “the 'boys' – or men – are 100 percent behind or with whomever they're directing themselves to.
In this case, they claim to be 100 percent behind Mexico's most powerful and most hunted drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
A third indication that the sign could actually be authentic, is the use of the word “chapulines,” which is rarely used by people other than drug traffickers and it refers to those who jump the chain of command and do business with their bosses contacts without their approval. Also, to refer to those who do business where they are not authorized to do so.
The fourth indication would be a very truthful statement made in the sign.: “We do not kill innocent people.” The various cartels, although more specifically the Sinaloa cartel of fugitive drug boss El Chapo, is known to carry out their very own cleanup of cities where they feel local authorities have failed.
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Such is the case of the Mexican border city of Tijuana – on the other side of San Diego – where kidnappings, car thefts, extortion and other petty crimes were out of control. El Chapo and his associate Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada sent in a security chief of theirs only known as Aquiles to cleanup the city and, obviously, to take over drug distribution and sale.
The sign announces just that by saying they have given Mancera many opportunities to cleanup the city, but the head of the capital's government has instead insisted there are no organized crime groups operating in the city.
In March, he said that, “In Mexico City there is no presence of a drug cartel nor is there one operating here.” He then said that there have been arrests of high-level drug cartel leaders in the capital, but “that is very different from actually saying there are cartels operating in Mexico City.”
However, in August the DEA revealed information that exposes Mancera as not being at all truthful,” saying that at least five major drug cartels were operating out of Mexico City.
“There are eight cartels that control the whole country, while there are at least five operating in Mexico City,” the DEA said, according to national daily newspaper Excelsior.
Among those mentioned in a report, the DEA told Excelsior that the Zetas, Sinaloa cartel, Beltran Leyva Brothers, the Gulf cartel and the Knights Templars operate in the Mexico City.
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