Jalisco cartel shown delivering aid to tropical storm victims

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) appears to have diversified into humanitarian aid.

A video posted online shows suspected members of the powerful criminal organization distributing packages of food aid in Tomatlán, Jalisco, to victims of Tropical Storm Priscilla, which lashed the coast of western Mexico last weekend.

“Here we are with all the people giving them aid. The people are very grateful for this support. . .” a suspected CJNG gunman says.

“This aid . . . comes from the boss, our boss, the señor Mencho,” another man says, referring to CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, one of the most wanted men on the planet.

“[I’m telling you] so that you know where it comes from, so that you don’t think that it’s from the [family services agency] DIF or another company,” he adds with a laugh.

Two pickup trucks filled with large aid packages appear in the video. Several residents of the community of Morelos accept the packages from the suspected cartel members.

The CJNG, considered Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization, has previously handed out toys to poor children in Veracruz on Children’s Day.

Children in 15 municipalities in the state’s mountainous central region received gifts accompanied by a card that read, “the CJNG wishes you a happy Children’s Day.”

The Sinaloa Cartel, whose gunman responded to the arrest of a son of former leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán last week with an unprecedented show of strength in Culiacán, has also shown that it has a charitable streak.

Just before Christmas last year, dozens of trucks turned up in several rural towns in the Sinaloa municipalities of Salvador Alvarado and Mocorito and delivered holiday gift baskets.

The baskets came with a card bearing a short message from the Sinaloa Cartel’s former chief lieutenant and security boss, Orso Iván Gastélum Cruz: “Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year from your friend Cholo Iván.”

Three months earlier, victims of Tropical Storm 19E in Ranchito, Angostura, also received a charitable visit from suspected Sinaloa Cartel members.

They received food supplies, mattresses, stoves and other appliances bearing a logo consisting of a black baseball cap with the initials JGL written in gold.

The donation of the disaster relief supplies was attributed to the former chief of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who was convicted by a United States court on drug trafficking charges in February and sentenced to life in prison in July.

Source: Infobae (sp)