“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Some time ago it became known that different criminal drug trafficking groups, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, used the Facebook platform to reach out to young people, offering promises of good salaries upon recruitment into the cartel. Nowadays, drug cartels are recruiting young people at any cost. They no longer promise them good salaries. They simply threaten them and recruit them by force. On March 17, it was reported that a group of 20 young people, all of them from Leon, Guanajuato, were recruited by the CJNG cartel while on a tour of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Jalisco.
According to the information, the youths were on a ride known as “Vallartazo.” The information added that the armed group located the youths, intercepted them, and kidnapped them in a threatening manner. However, they reported that one of them opposed the kidnapping and was shot and later died in a hospital.
The young man from Leon, Guanajuato, was identified as Joaquin Miguel, who reported that his companions had been kidnapped by members of the CJNG. These types of events have been occurring more frequently in some areas of Jalisco. Young people are afraid that at any moment, they could be victims of forced recruitment by any of the drug cartels that operate with too much impunity in these areas.