Carlos Manzo. Remember that name. On November 1, this 40-year-old Mayor of Uruapan, Mexico (pop. 350,00) was shot seven times and killed while giving a speech at a large Day of the Dead celebration. He had become well known for his vocal opposition to cartel violence and his demand that government officials kill cartel members.
Here are three other names that signify the deadly battle against drug cartels in Mexico.
On June 26, 2020, Omar Garcia Harfuch, then the police chief of Mexico City was ambushed in broad daylight on the Paseo de la Reforma and wounded three times. Two of his bodyguards were killed as well as a woman bystander. The attackers used grenades as well as 50 caliber weapons.
This was as brazen as the killing of Manzo.
On October 16, 2020, former Mexican defense minister from 2012 to 2018, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda was arrested at the Los Angeles airport on drug charges but later released due to pressure from Mexico’s then-president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
A few months earlier, Genaro García Luna was indicted on drug charges. He had served in cabinet level positions under President Felipe Calderón; in October 2024, he was convicted in federal court in Brooklyn and received a 38-year prison sentence which he is currently serving at the federal “super max” in Florence, Colorado.
I mention these four names to show the impunity with which cartels carry out these brutal attacks (Harfuch and Manzo) and the complicity of even the highest level of government officials (Cienfuegos Zepeda and García Luna).
Imagine trying to combat these cartels when you can’t trust even your top officials.
What next? Will this turn President Trump’s attention away from a potential attack on Venezuela? He has let slide a tariff deadline on Mexico but that could change in an instant. He could also renew his push for military action within Mexico.
As for Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum continues to enjoy extremely high popularity ratings – close to 80% - in large part due to her ability to stand up to President Trump in a calm, decisive manner. However, despite having taken much stronger steps against the cartels than her predecessor, AMLO, polling shows that she is vulnerable on the issue of crime. How will the Carlos Manzo murder change this?
According to a November 6 New York Times report, the Sheinbaum administration claims that they have arrested 35,000 people for major crimes this year and destroyed 1,600 drug labs. This is four times more than the AMLO administration. Homicides have dropped by almost a third. (As Mayor of Mexico City, she reduced homicides by 50%.)
Overall crime statistics are still grim, however. Integralia, a Mexican consulting firm indicates that there have been 112 political assassinations so far this year. One of them involved the murder of the personal secretary and an advisor to the Mayor of Mexico City in May, indicating that no one is immune, even though most of these killings occur at the local level.
Although Sheinbaum has taken a strong stand on the issue of Mexico’s sovereignty, rejecting President Trump’s suggestion of sending troops to Mexico, she has asked for help from the US.
First, she has asked that we help stem the flow of weapons from the US to Mexico by conducting checks at our ports of entry. On Easter Day, 2024, I was stopped at the tiny port of entry at Sasabe, Arizona and my car was thoroughly searched by US Customs and Border Protection officials. It seemed like we were finally taking Sheinbaum’s plea seriously but I have made numerous crossings since then and have seen no effort to conduct spot checks. I assume that I was searched because these agents had little traffic to deal with and were just bored.
On May 9, US Senator from New Mexico, Ben Ray Luján and others wrote Cabinet Secretaries Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi to point out that “anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 weapons are smuggled into Mexico every year” and got no response.
Her second comment concerned our national obsession for drugs. We are one of the largest consumers of illegal drugs both as a nation and on an individual basis. Why, given this demand and the billions of dollars involved, isn’t the Trump administration focusing on this?
Although Sheinbaum has had success in arresting and either prosecuting or extraditing higher level cartel members, there is a continuing entry level pipeline of young kids who have no real job options other than joining cartels as lookouts and then working their way up the system. I have seen them on the mountain slope between Anapra, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, an area that is now, sadly, a militarized zone and off limits to ordinary citizens like me.
This problem of young men who are adrift and without purpose is a US problem as well.
Manzo was highly aggressive in his stance against the cartels and criticized Sheinbaum’s more cautious approach. It’s tragic that he was singled out for death but also understandable. This brazen message, however, was also aimed at Sheinbaum. How will she respond? The fact that a drunken man got close enough to grope her on November 4 suggests that she needs to tighten her security.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Morgan Smith, a writer who travels at least once a month to the border to both document conditions there and assist several humanitarian organizations. He can be reached at Morgan-smith@comcast.net.
