The rumor is that the Mexican government was sitting down with the New Generation cartel to hash out a meeting, and the government arrested one of the main guys. As a result of this, the cartel showed its force.
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The warning issued by the New Generation cartel that they were going to kill people if they were out after 10 p.m. did work. Many people did not go out at night. It was a show of force to show disruption and mostly psychological.
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People carrying out the attacks weren’t cartel members .... That’s not what happened. They were [mostly under age 19]. They were paid several hundred dollars to steal and burn cars in the middle of the street. It was an organized effort.
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The cartel does not need to send 260 people with AKs to Tijuana to have a shootout with the government. They can just send money, burn a bunch of cars, and disrupt one of Mexico’s biggest economies for the weekend.
CBS:
The spark that set off the chaos in Jalisco and Guanajuato last week was apparently the military coming upon a meeting involving a boss from the Jalisco cartel, which the Department of Justice considers to be "one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world." The cartel's leader ... is among the most sought by Mexican and U.S. authorities.
[Mexico's Defense Secretary] said the soldiers hadn't known about it and were just trying to intercept a cartel convoy.
"The narco terrorism of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is a reaction to the president's change in strategy," [an analyst] said. "If the Mexican president continues with this strategy of capturing high-ranking members of the Jalisco cartel, the Jalisco cartel is going to respond with acts of narcoterrorism in the states it controls as part of its vast empire."