MEXICAN JUDGES ISSUE 192 RULINGS AIDING ORGANIZED CRIME, FEMA SCALES BACK DISASTER TRAINING AHEAD OF HURRICANE SEASON, AND COLOMBIAN MILITARY USES WHATSAPP TO COMMUNICATE IN CONFLICT ZONES
- Senior Editor
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
May 8-14, 2025 | Issue 17 - NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM Teams
Daniela De Luca, Jacob Robison, Katya Burklin, Tate English, Julia Eder, Noah Kuttymartin, Benedetta Magnante Fralleone, Ashley Snyder
Samantha Mikulskis, Editor; Clémence Van Damme, Senior Editor
Corrupted Judges[1]
Date:Â May 8, 2025
Location: Mexico
Parties involved: Mexico; Head of the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection (SSPC) of Mexico Omar GarcÃa Harfuch; Mexican authorities; Mexican judicial staff; Mexican court administrative staff; Mexican court clerks; Mexican legal assistants; Mexican law enforcement; Mexican cartels; Mexican armed group Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG); witnesses
The event: Harfuch said multiple judges collectively issued 192 rulings favoring organized crime groups between October 2024 and April 2025.[2]
Analysis & Implications:
Cartels like CJNG, almost certainly seeking to maintain influence over judicial outcomes, will likely opt for more covert corruption strategies, such as targeting administrative staff. Cartels will likely coerce clerks and legal assistants into forced errors, such as misfiling documents or falsifying evidential records, to manipulate the judicial process while attracting minimal scrutiny. These errors, compounded by typical bureaucratic delays, such as the time required to process files, will very likely allow the cartels to avoid prompt investigations, very likely giving them time to ponder the situation. These discreet corruption tactics will almost certainly allow cartels to relocate assets and neutralize witnesses while preserving their judicial influence through manipulation that remains difficult for authorities to counter.
Even without overt violence, cartels will very likely cause judicial staff to feel psychologically constrained between compliance and resistance. The psychological burden of potential consequences will likely pressure judicial staff into self-censorship and passive compliance with cartel requests. These judicial staff will very likely experience internal conflict as they perceive compliance as their only safe option, likely causing them to feel psychological guilt and responsibility for their compromised positions. This psychological strain will very likely reduce the judiciary's mental resilience to cartel influence, likely normalizing compliant behavior and psychologically isolating those who resist.                 Â
Date:Â May 11, 2025
Location: USA
Parties involved: USA; US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); US disaster response personnel and first responders; insurance companies in the US; vulnerable populations and communities; US coastal communities; US citizens in affected states; US low-income residents
The event: FEMA has scaled back readiness training for disaster response personnel at the state and community level, weeks before hurricane season.[3]
Analysis & Implications:
Cutting federal disaster preparedness training will likely shift the burden onto individual states, likely increasing the vulnerability of financially strained ones, such as Louisiana. These vulnerable states will very likely face specific financial challenges when replacing federal training programs, likely forcing them to choose between allocating limited disaster funds and addressing structural budget deficits that already strain core services. This underfunding will very likely result in emergency training that falls below national standards, likely leaving first responders with outdated protocols and insufficient cross-agency coordination capabilities. These operational deficiencies will very likely cause citizens in affected states to experience prolonged emergency response times, likely hindering evacuations and elevating the risk of preventable casualties among vulnerable populations.  Â
Reduced FEMA training will almost certainly cause insurance companies to reduce coverage and increase premiums in coastal regions, likely deepening economic instability in vulnerable communities. These pricing adjustments will very likely lead to coverage becoming unaffordable for low-income residents in high-risk areas, likely creating insurance voids in coastal communities. Without insurance protection, affected households will likely deplete savings and incur substantial debt after disasters, triggering cycles of financial insecurity in these regions. These compounding financial pressures will likely transform temporary disaster impacts into long-term economic hardship, as only wealthier populations will likely be able to rebuild and recover effectively after major climate events.
Date: May 13, 2025
Location: Colombia
Parties involved:Â Colombia; Colombian government; Colombian military units and patrols; Colombian military personnel; Colombian-based transnational armed guerrilla group National Liberation Army (ELN); ELN forces; Colombian organized crime groups (OCGs); international hacking group Guacamaya; hacktivist collectives; hackers; technical experts; cyber operators; free messaging service WhatsApp
The event: The Colombian military is using WhatsApp as its primary communication tool in conflict zones, due to the obsolescence of its military communication equipment.[4]
Analysis & Implications:
Colombian military personnel will likely operate in conflict zones with poor cellular connectivity, likely rendering WhatsApp ineffective and delaying the reception of critical information on the ground. Some operational areas, such as the Choco department, very likely lack consistent cellular coverage, likely resulting in planning delays and poorly coordinated operations. The unreliable military communications network will almost certainly create coordination failures across units, enabling OCGs such as the ELN to exploit these vulnerabilities by rapidly repositioning their forces to avoid contact with military patrols. These communication failures will likely hamper the military's tactical effectiveness, as OCGs will very likely exploit delays in information sharing to maintain freedom of movement and continue their illicit activities with reduced risk of interception.
The military's use of WhatsApp likely creates greater opportunities for hackers to infiltrate criminal networks, likely enabling them to recruit technical experts and access sensitive operational details for leverage against the government. This communication vulnerability will likely attract hacktivist collectives such as Guacamaya to expose sensitive military data like troop movements and personnel rosters, likely enhancing criminal networks' ability to exploit these operational details for strategic advantage. Rather than relying solely on dark web marketplaces, this infiltration opportunity will likely foster direct collaboration between hackers and OCGs, enabling them to develop internal digital expertise or contract specialized cyber operators who can extract the sensitive operational information. This expanded technical capability will likely enhance OCGs' precision in targeting military assets and personnel, likely enabling sophisticated coercive actions that provide criminal groups substantial leverage over government decisions and counter-narcotics operations.  Â
[1]Â Business Individual in court, generated by a third party database
[2]Â Harfuch exhibe a Gregorio Salazar y otros jueces que favorecen a lÃderes criminales con traslados y liberaciones, Infobae, May 2025, https://www.infobae.com/mexico/2025/05/08/harfuch-exhibe-al-juez-gregorio-salazar-por-favorecer-a-lideres-criminales-con-traslados-y-liberaciones/Â (translated by Google)
[3]Â FEMA cuts emergency training under Trump as hurricane season looms, Reuters, May 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/fema-cuts-emergency-training-hurricane-season-looms-2025-05-11/Â
[4] Equipos de comunicación de militares colombianos en el terreno no sirven: uniformados aseguran que tienen que comunicarse por Whatsapp, Infobae, May 2025, https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2025/05/13/militares-colombianos-recurren-a-whatsapp-en-operaciones-por-inoperancia-de-equipos-de-comunicacion-del-ejercito/ (translated by Google)