Mexican drug cartels and crime gangs are reportedly kidnapping car armouring experts and forcing them to create 'monster vehicles' for their illicit operations.
Borderland Beat reported that abductions of automotive armour technicians is on the rise throughout Mexico, and the gangs are then forcing the experts to teach their criminals how to kit out vehicles.
The title reported that investigations have revealed clandestine workshops where armoring experts are subjected to forced labor.
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Other Mexican outlets have interviewed those on the frontline of the issue. Héctor Romero Sánchez, who works in the security sector, said: "Once the kidnapping is committed, they take them to their workshops. Those workshops can be in different parts of the Mexican Republic.
"And in the cities where it is more accessible in terms of having all the elements and tools. Once they have their victims there they obviously bring people to be taught.
"If our fellow technicians are lucky they are set free and leave. Unfortunately, when they’re not so lucky they are killed."
The aim is to manufacture the so-called 'Monstruo vehicles,' or 'Monstor vehicles, otherwise known as 'Narco Tanks'.
In July last year, Mexican authorities destoroyed 23 makeshift armored vehicles that were confiscated from organised crime groups.
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The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) collaborated with the army to destroy the improvised fighting vehicles at FGR facilities in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
The army has seized a total of 630 armored vehicles from organized crime since 2018, including 66 with improvised armor-plating, Mexico News Daily reported.
Some 231 of the vehicles were seized in Tamaulipas, where the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas are involved in a turf war.
In July 2021, authorities located a factory in Tuxpan, Jalisco, where vehicles were converted into narco-tanks by kidnapped men for the feared Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
The three men were released after three days teaching gang members, but the vehicle armoring company they worked for closed down soon after because of threats, according to reports.
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