Barrio Azteca (), or Los Aztecas (), is a Mexican-American street and prison gang originally based in El Paso, Texas, USA and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The gang was formed in the Coffield Unit, located near Tennessee Colony, Texas by Jose "Raulio" Rivera, a prisoner from El Paso, in the early 1980s. It expanded into a transnational criminal organization that traded mainly across the US-Mexico border. Currently one of the most violent gangs in the United States, they are said to have over 3,000 members across the country in locations such as New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania as well as at least 5,000 members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
In 2008, Barrio Azteca formed an alliance with La Línea, the armed wing of the Juárez Cartel, to fight off the forces of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were attempting to take over the drug smuggling routes in the area. Control of the routes in Ciudad Juárez, known as the "Juárez plaza," is vital for drug trafficking organizations, since they are a major illicit conduit into the United States. The DEA estimates that about 70% of the cocaine to enter the United States does so through the area. The gang's primary source of income derives from smuggling drugs across the border from Mexico to the United States. They are also responsible for the distribution and sale of narcotics both in and outside prisons. Besides drug trafficking, they have been charged with a medley of different crimes.
The gang, which operates in the U.S. and Mexico, has morphed into a prime example of the "cross-border nature of Mexico's drug war." Members may either be US or Mexican citizens. Most of the violence associated with the gang occurs in Mexico. By June 2020, the Sinaloa Cartel's Los Salazar cell, and not Barrio Azteca, was the only other organized crime group which was considered on par with La Linea for control of the Ciudad Juárez drug trafficking market.
History
Background The Barrio Azteca gang was formed in the jails of El Paso in 1986 and gained an image of being a tough and loyal gang willing to commit murder of civilians in order to keep fear in the minds of its members and ensure their loyalty/obedience.
Some believe that the growth of Barrio Azteca in Mexico is due to the area's distinctive cross-border nature. The area of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez is in many ways one community, with families, friends, businesses – and even gangs – joined in the same urban sprawl. Some undocumented Mexicans arrested in the United States are imprisoned in Texan prisons and consequently join Barrio Azteca. When they are absolved from their sentences, they are sent to their country of origin, where they quickly join the gang's ranks and carry out a number of crimes. The Barrio Azteca has long sold drugs moved by the Juárez Cartel. As Barrio Azteca grew in power, it began to work directly with the Juarez Cartel and their alliance grew stronger. The gang began to directly buy large sums of cocaine from the cartel at cheaper rates, and in return the gang would buy weapons in so called straw purchases from Texan gun shops and then smuggle them across the border. Furthermore, if the cartel needed to intimidate or carry out an assassination in the United States, they would simply call on the Barrio Azteca. When the Sinaloa Cartel made its first incursion into Ciudad Juárez in 2008, Barrio Azteca was called to defend the plaza. They are alleged by the Mexican authorities to have committed numerous brutal assassinations in the city, although the exact numbers are unknown. In addition, Barrio Azteca controls most of the drug sales for the Juárez Cartel in Ciudad Juárez's streets and prisons, although other gangs and independent operators abound.
Barrio Azteca is also reported to have kidnapped people in El Paso and drive them south into Ciudad Juárez to kill them. A murder in Texas drives a huge investigation which often leads to an arrest. But in Ciudad Juárez, it is one of the more than ten corpses found dead on a daily basis. The gang also tortures and murders its victims in front of a large and cheering gang audience. According to the testimony of an alleged Barrio Azteca member, gang members torture and kill their victims by digging up holes in the ground, throwing a bunch of mesquite, and then pouring in some gasoline. The gang members then beat up their victims and throw them in the hole. Then they light the whole thing on fire.
Eduardo Ravelo's era Eduardo Ravelo, the captured former leader of the Barrio Azteca, began his criminal career in the year 2003, amassing a list of charges for racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges with the intent to distribute narcotics. In the year 2005, an informant and former lieutenant of the gang testified that Ravelo was looking for a man who had stolen goods from the Juárez cartel. The informant said that Ravelo was taken to a house in El Paso where a gang member was being held, his mouth, wrists, and ankles bound with duct tape. Ravelo then ordered the traitor to be sent to the Juárez cartel, and he was never heard from again. In El Paso Ravelo's gang is known as Barrio Azteca, a gang originally morphed from the so-called Mexican Mafia prison gang. During its initial years, the gang's aim was street robbery to collect funds to liberate prisoners in jail. Today, the gang has expanded into a large criminal gang with presence in both the United States and Mexico, besetting by drug trafficking and human smuggling. In Ciudad Juárez, however, the gang is known as Los Aztecas. Under the tutelage of Ravelo, the gang moves narcotics along the border with the aid of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes' cartel.
According to reports of U.S. authorities, Ravelo was born in Mexico but has permanent residence in the United States. He allegedly pays his sicarios (hitmen) less than 500 pesos (or about $40 U.S. dollars) a week to carry out assassinations. When drug loads go missing while being smuggled, suspects are kidnapped and taken to Ciudad Juárez. Some are shot dead, while others are tortured and then shot. Some, however, are beheaded. Not all the killings carried about by Ravelo's gang are a result of drug disputes. Some murders are carried out to intimidate and as retaliation attacks.
Ciudad Juárez prison massacres First prison massacre A fierce battle between rival drug trafficking organizations broke loose inside a prison on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez on 5 March 2009. The violence resulted in the deaths of 20 inmates. It took the guards, police, and Mexican military more than three hours to put down the unrest inside the prison. From a distance, family members awaited news as black smoke drifted from the prison and helicopters patrolled overhead. At one point, inmates could be seen lighting mattresses and bodies being thrown from second-story windows. The brawl, which was between Barrio Azteca and Los Mexicles, erupted at around 6 a.m. after the conclusion of a series of conjugal visits. Alongside Los Mexicles were the Artistas Asesinos, a rival gang and an enforcer group of the Sinaloa cartel. All 20 of the dead were members of Los Mexicles and Artistas Asesinos, indicating that the prison fight was instigated by members of the Barrio Azteca group. One report issued by Los Angeles Times stated that members of Barrio Azteca stole the keys of a prison guard and were able to free their cohorts and begin a rampage in cells controlled by their rival groups. In a relatively low-security area inside the prison, the gang members began to produce knives and force other guards to liberate 150 fellow members. Once they took the guards hostage, Barrio Azteca members went into high-security blocks where the rival members were in, forced the guards to open them, and went about killing the rival inmates. Some of the victims were stabbed with knives, while others were beaten to death; some were killed with home-made guns.
The Mexican authorities were able to militarize the area with more than 200 federal police officers, 50 soldiers, two helicopters, a plane, and an unknown number of state and municipal police forces. The exact reasons for the massacre are unknown, but the feud between Barrio Azteca and Artistas Asesinos runs deep, and they often fight for the control of drugs, guns, and other illicit contrabands inside prisons. This massacre had come after a rare experience of 24 hours without any drug-related assassinations in Ciudad Juárez and after a large military buildup during that weekend. Back in 2005, the Barrio Azteca gang had carried out a murderous attack against members of Los Mexicles inside the same prison, leaving six dead.
Second prison massacre At around 9:00 p.m. on 26 July 2011, the Barrio Azteca carried out an attack on Los Mexicles, a street gang of the Sinaloa cartel, which left 17 dead and 20 injured inside a prison in Ciudad Juárez. Some of the violence was captured by a surveillance video that shows two gunmen clearing a hallway of guards before unlocking a door and allowing several triggermen to shoot inside a room where the inmates were killed. The violence continued elsewhere throughout the prison until around 2 a.m. the next day. Although there was no audio in the video, the footage shows how two gunmen order the guards to leave. Despite being armed, they seem to follow the orders of the gang members without any resistance. Following their exit, the two men open a different door and allowed four other accomplices into the hallway, some of them who were carrying assault rifles. At that point, the triggermen opened the doors of another room, and that is when the firing began. Officials of the state of Chihuahua said they were unable to locate the five weapons used in the massacre; nonetheless, an AR-15 assault rifle, one of the weapons thought to be used in the massacre, was confiscated.
Initial reports had stated that the massacre had started as a clash between prison gangs, but the surveillance video shows "cold-blood executions," and that the members of the Barrio Azteca gang carried out the shootout without any provocation from their enemies. According to The Guardian, the video suggests that the guards may have allowed the assassins to kill the inmates, proving that the prison was plagued by "weak controls, disorganisation and possible corruption." Their reports state that the inmates had broken the rules of the jail and held large parties, possibly with the guards' permission. Moreover, the prison was highly overcrowded, with over 2,700 inmates in a facility with a capacity of only 850 prisoners.
Villas de Salvárcar massacre