Less than two weeks before the 2026 World Cup begins and Mexico is set to shine as one of the host countries, a new security fire has broken out for the authorities in Colima. The clashes in the municipality of Tecomán have left one dead, two police officers injured, and road blockades. The federal Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, assured this Wednesday in a press conference that it is an internal struggle between local groups affiliated with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Six people have already been arrested, including one of the cabinet’s priority targets. “In recent days the situation had worsened, but as a result of these arrests we are confident that, as was reflected yesterday and the day before, the violence will decrease,” promised the official.
The scenes left by the internal battles in the small town of less than 150,000 inhabitants have terrified the residents: columns of smoke, overturned and burned trucks, and an open confrontation with the Investigative Police officers, who were trapped in a shootout and were shot at by individuals in a vehicle. The officers began a pursuit that provoked the armed group’s reaction with fires and they formed a barrier to block the Colima-Manzanillo highway. One of the burning trailers used as a barricade was hit by a train. They managed to escape, according to the State Government. The fear of further reprisals forced the authorities to suspend in-person classes in Tecomán, as well as in Manzanillo, Armería, and Ixtlahuacán.
However, García Harfuch assured that this Tuesday the Navy Department arrested five of those involved with the support of the State Police and the Colima General Prosecutor’s Office. Three days earlier, they had managed to arrest one of the ringleaders and a priority target. “These are very local groups that derive from what was the Jalisco Cartel, some called Los Mezcales, fighting with another internal group, precisely in Colima,” the official detailed. The Government has sent a security reinforcement to the State, where it has deployed 200 emergency agents in the region and established a coordination plan between the federal Executive and the local Government, headed by Indira Vizcaíno Silva, from Morena.
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After a meeting with the State Coordination Table for the Construction of Peace and Security, the governor assured that the municipality had returned to calm. “The situation in the operation area is calm and is under total control of the state and federal corporations. The Table will update and detail the results of the operation in question,” she promised.
Colima was one of the epicenters of the narco-blockades that arose in response to the attempted capture — and subsequent death in the operation — of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, who was the supreme leader of the most powerful criminal organization in the country. At the end of last year, a Navy operation arrested 54 people in different municipalities of Manzanillo, a coastal city highly coveted by organized crime for its commercial port that serves as an entry point for Pacific Ocean trafficking.