As reported by Nogales International
Citing the “system of reporter statistics in regard to insecurity,” the paper Nuevo Dia reported 74 murders in Nogales, Sonora last year. The same newspaper, citing its own tallies, reported a year ago that there were 50 murders in the city in 2013, a decrease from the 58 it documented in 2012.
The Hermosillo-based daily El Imparcial reported last year that it had tallied 44 murders in Nogales, Sonora during 2013, a slight increase from the 42 it counted in 2012.
Despite the apparent jump in murders last year, the numbers still reflect a significant drop from 2010, when the Sinaloa drug cartel run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman set out to take back territory that had been controlled by Arturo Beltran Leyva, the kingpin killed by the Mexican military in December 2009. El Imparcial reported 226 murders in Nogales, Sonora in 2010 and Nuevo Dia counted 236.
According to the report published Tuesday in Nuevo Dia, murders rose statewide in Sonora, from 612 in 2013 to 635 in 2014.
Nogales, Sonora had the third-most murders among Sonoran cities, behind Cajeme with 175 and Hermosillo with 102.
Note
While this article did not speculate why the murder rate rose, the following excerpt from Progreso's article "Pese a los reveses, el Cártel de Sinaloa se mantiene incólume", based on information provided by Al Laurita, a special agent in charge of the DEA office in Tucson, should be taken into consideration:With the capture of El Chapo on February 22, 2014 and Ismael Zambada, El Mayito Gordo (son of El Mayo Zambada) November 12, in Mexico some people and entities, including the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, believed that the Sinaloa Cartel had been shattered.
"The only change that we have observed is among the people that controlled the plaza of Nogales
(Sonora) and the one that managed the western zone of the Sonoran desert, and those had the relationship with the Indian reservation of the Tohono O'odham Nation, in southwestern and central Arizona".
According to the reports that the DEA in Tucson has, these modifications were only of people, without affecting the business, because the people that used to manage these plazas were "people of El Chapo" now replaced by "people of El Mayo Zambada".