This is the latest attack in Nuevo Laredo by one of the country's most powerful criminal syndicates, the Los Zetas. Currently, authorities suspect the border city was where the criminal organization set the base of their operations as most cartels do so in order to remain in close proximity to the border with the United States.

Nuevo Laredo is currently seeing a surge of attacks against federal authorities and civilians by the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. Last week, the police rescued two Pakistani migrants who were being held against their will in a stash house.

Latest Shootout the Work of Tropa del Infierno

More recently, while a Mexican military convoy was running rounds in the Nuevo Laredo to enforce mitigation measures against the pandemic, they were immediately attacked by Los Zetas gunmen near Cavazos Lerma Boulevard last Sunday.

The gunmen fled from the scene, only to set up an ambush at the highway overpass for the soldiers. During the shootout, seven of the Los Zetas gunmen were killed, and two of whom were the bodyguards of a cartel leader. 

The convoy of the criminal cartel was an assortment of different vehicles. The gunmen themselves equipped their garments with military-style body armors.

In a report by Breitbart, the military said that some of the dead cartel members identified themselves as Tropa 101 and Flako 112, which was a fraction group of the CDN-Los Zetas.

They were known for various acts of war violence like armed attacks, murders, and kidnappings.

Apart from this information, police believe that based on their mode of operations, this group of gunmen were part of the Tropa del Infierno, who worked under Martin El Cadete" Rodriguez Barbosa and Jesus Gerardo "El Huevo" Trevino Chavez.

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Police find firearms in an SUV after a shootout with Mexico's Gulf Cartel

Nearby, in Matamoros, state police recovered firearms in an SUV shortly after a gun battle with Mexico's Gulf Cartel. 

Federal authorities were patrolling Matamoros when a group of Gulf Cartel gunmen attacked them. The police discovered that the target of the ambush was a law enforcement official leading the patrol of the state police convoy.

With the help of backup, the police chased the criminal convoy along Palmarese Boulevard. When they caught up with one of the vehicles, they recovered the weapons found in the SUV.

According to federal forces, the gunmen who attacked them were members of the Gulf Cartel's splinter group, the Matamoros faction. They were known for their rivalry with other drug cartels in Reynosa over territories and routes in the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last month, they participated in food distribution drives for the rural poor, which was suspected to be a form of recruitment operation to sway the public away from the state.