La Línea (gang)
Acosta Hernández (a.k.a. El Diego), a former leader of La Línea in front of cameras.
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| Founding location | Ciudad Juárez, Mexico |
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| Territory | Chihuahua, Texas |
| Leader(s) | Juan Pablo Ledezma |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, murder |
| Allies | Juárez Cartel, Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, Los Zetas Barrio Azteca |
| Rivals | Sinaloa Cartel, Los Antrax, Gente Nueva, Los Mexicles, Artistas Asesinos |
La Línea ("The Line") is an enforcer unit of the Juárez Cartel originally set up by a number of former and active-duty policemen, heavily armed and extensively trained in urban warfare. Their corrupt "line" of policemen were set up to protect drug traffickers, but after forming an alliance with Barrio Azteca to fight off the forces of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2008, they established a foothold in Ciudad Juárez as the enforcement wing of the Juárez cartel. La Línea has also been involved in extortions and kidnappings.
At the service of the Juárez cartel, La Línea has been instrumental in helping Vicente Carrillo Fuentes' organization hold some semblance in the Ciudad Juárez, one of the most important crossings and drug corridors in the U.S-Mexico border and home to a growing retail drug market. The DEA estimates that about 70% of the cocaine that enters the United States flows through the El Paso–Juárez border. Nonetheless, the hegemony of the La Línea declined from 2008–2012 as the Juárez Cartel lost ground against the Sinaloa Cartel, which now controls most of the smuggling routes in the area.
La Línea is linked to some of Ciudad Juárez's and the state's most notorious massacres, including the massacre of 16 teenagers at a high school party, the shooting that killed 19 patients at a rehab center, and of the cell phone-detonated car bomb attack – all of them perpetrated in 2010. Their former gang leader, nicknamed El Diego, was guilty of carrying out more than 1,500 killings from 2008 to 2011.
Gunmen burst into a party in a small working-class neighborhood known as Villas de Salvárcar in Ciudad Juárez, killing 16 teenagers on 31 January 2010. Witnesses said that the cartel members arrived at the crime scene in seven cars with tinted windows, closed down the street and blocked the exits. Then they stormed the party and opened fire at the victims as they were watching a soccer game. Some of the teenagers were shot as they tried to flee and their corpses were found in the neighboring houses. As neighbors hid in their houses, some dialed the emergency services but the Mexican military and the Federal police did not arrive until after the killers had left. When the Mexican authorities arrived, a large crowd gathered at the crime scene as the neighbors and family members of the victims, whose ages ranged from 15 to 20, cried and set down candles. They pleaded for their names not to be released for the fear of the hit men returning and taking revenge. The relatives and witnesses interviewed after the massacre insisted that the teenagers had nothing to do with the drug trade and were "good kids." What was troubling for the authorities was that the victims were not gathered inside a bar or at a rehab center, but rather at a private home. They gave no official statement for the motives behind the killing, but the massacre bore all the signs of the drug violence that Ciudad Juárez was living for the past three years. Videos from the crime scene depict a sparsely furnished home with large puddles of blood and taints smeared on the walls; in addition, more than 100 AK-47 bullet casings were found at the crime scene. The Mexican authorities issued a reward of $1 million pesos for anyone who could provide information that led to the arrest of the killers.
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Wikipedia