Jalisco New Generation, one of the most powerful and brutal drug cartels in Mexico, is reportedly recruiting young women to add to its lower ranks.
Reports this summer suggested that young women were being forced into the ranks of the Jalisco New Generation to collaborate in hostage-taking and be trained as assassins from a young age, reports the Infobae network.
The gang, led by Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, often tries to intimidate their rivals with brutal displays of violence, such as the killing of corpses from a bridge in northern Mexico a month ago.
But among the 16 arrested by cartel members in August, three were young girls between 18 and 20 years old, while several other women were killed in clashes with the authorities.
Earlier this month, Mexican police killed a member of the Brisa del Mar cartel in Palma Sola, Veracruz.
The officers said they were ambushed and opened fire killing two people including Brisa del Mar.
In recent weeks the Mexican cartel United Cartels executed several New Generation militants in Aguililla, Michoacan.
Among the dead was the woman known as La Guadana (The Sickle), one of the executioners of the group, reports the daily La Voz de Michoacan.
The United Cartels had dumped the bodies of the slain on the street and confirmed the act in a post, inviting the New Generation cartel to come pick them up.
The city is engulfed in violence from the rivalry between two gangs fighting for territory.
In January 21-year-old Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquive was killed by special police forces after a raid on her hit squad headquarters in Aguililla.
She also had a huge following online as she posed armed and half-naked on Instagram.
Soldiers' body cameras had captured him in his final moments after being fatally shot in the throat. /TCH/
