On the morning of February 16, the governor of the state of Chiapas confirmed the capture of at least 20 people after a series of operations in the Lacandon Jungle region. According to available reports, among those arrested were the deputy director of the State Police and several indigenous inhabitants of the Lacanjá Chansayab community.
In September 2024, four families who were displaced from the aforementioned community reported that behind multiple acts of violence there was an organized crime group that had been joined by their own colleagues from the Lacandon Mayan ethnic group. Although their testimony showed the infiltration of the cartels in the area, this situation had already been recognized by the federal government.
During the morning conference on March 20, 2023, then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pointed out that in the Lacandon Jungle region corresponding to Bonampak “there are clandestine runways, they are managed by one of the cartels, planes with drugs are landing.”
According to information obtained by journalist Ángeles Mariscal, founder of the Chiapas Paralelo portal, the interest of criminal groups in the Lacandon Jungle began to be reflected in 2019. Previously, the dense vegetation, the few communication routes and the distance between communities had been key factors in preventing the settlement of criminal organizations. However, these groups took advantage of such conditions to turn the region into a valuable hiding place.
A peasant of Tzeltal origin whose identity is reserved told the journalist that in his community there is a landing strip for small planes that was built decades ago as an alternative to get out in the event of an emergency. “Over the years, the runway was only used to take out sick people, or when health brigades or public servants occasionally came to the area,” said the interviewee.
It was at the end of 2019 that some people came to the town to “ask to rent the runway.” The residents granted their permission because they thought it would be used to distribute medicines and other goods. Shortly after, the armed men began loading the planes with large-caliber weapons. “They threatened and beat those who resisted; they killed some and left their bodies in pieces,” the farmer recalled.
Faced with this scenario, dozens of people had to leave the region and, according to available reports, the same intimidation strategy was replicated in other communities.
In March 2024, several families from the Maya people attended an assembly in the community of Lacanjá Chansayab, where alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel related to Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada warned them that “they were going to take possession of plots, houses and properties.”
It is presumed that this criminal organization would be the one that “with impunity, has been increasingly taking control of its jungle, opening clandestine runways for the trafficking of cocaine, controlling the trafficking of undocumented immigrants, charging protection money to small merchants, as well as fees to providers of tourist services, carrying out forced evictions of hundreds of families, disappearing people and committing femicides,” can be read in a statement written by those who live in the Communal Property of the Lacandon Zone.
Source: infobae
