“Responsible for the slaughter of some 70 migrants, mostly from Central America, which appeared in a mass grave in the town of San Fernando, Tamaulipas was a 22 year old who was just arrested. This young man ordered the kidnapping of several buses carrying the migrants, detained and tortured them to find out if they had a relationship with a rival group and finally ordered they be killed.

Also arrested was one of the murderers of two of Governor Rodrigo Medina’s bodyguards, who is 18 years of age. SWAT team members of Nuevo Leon were picked up by police in the municipality of Zuazua, and given to assassins who tortured and killed them leaving a message to the governor.

Also last week, there was a very rough gunbattle on the border between Jalisco and Zacatecas. Gunmen who moved in several trucks with federal forces clashed for hours, ten died and several were arrested, including six girls between the ages of 16 and 21 who admitted being killers and sexual partners of members of the criminal group. They collected 12,000 pesos ($1,000) every two weeks.

Such was the case last week. Before this there have been stories of “El Ponchis” and child assassins of Morelos, or the young girls, almost children, with whom Jesús “El Negro” Radilla, head of the same group which “El Ponchis” was affiliated with, who served as sexual partners, assassins or were hired to leave mutilated bodies in the streets; or the thousands of young gang members in Los Aztecas or Artistas Asesinos, engaged in brutal warfare across the border area of Ciudad Juárez.

The stories are innumerable, but the truth is that every time, the assassins of these criminal groups are younger and crueler with their victims, and more money has less to do with their involvement in these criminal groups. Nothing is more worrisome in terms of social phenomenon which has been done directly, than involving thousands of children and adolescents in organized crime, not as in the past being camels (carriers) or consumers and distributors, but increasingly as killers for trace amounts of money.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/06/young-guns.html