The Washington Post today reports the trucks
...look like a cross between a handmade assault vehicle used by a Somali warlord and something out of a post-apocalyptic “Mad Max” movie. Complete with battering rams.
The assault vehicles have appeared in several confrontations with Mexican authorities. In the western state of Jalisco, soldiers confronted one of the beasts in May and disabled it by shooting out its tires. The trucks have not been seen in the cities and remain mostly a chilling curiosity.Borderland Beat reports the army unearthed a monster truck on Tuesday in Coahuila. Reports the blog,
The vehicle is built on a Ford Super Duty 4 x 4 frame and is powered by a V-10 Triton gasoline engine with a reinforced transmission and drivetrain. The armour consists of 1 cm thick steel plate and all windows are 5 layer ballistic glass.
The vehicle has driver and passenger front doors and a rear access door, is double turreted, and has 6 windows with a total of 9 weapon portholes on both sides. In addition to the driver and passenger there is space for 12 gunmen.
It is theorized that the vehicle was hidden due to the heavy presence of Army and Marine units currently in Coahuila.
The Post reports the trucks aren't the only sophisticated transportation used by the drug cartels. They also use:
- an elaborate tunnel stretching more than 2,200 feet with train tracks and ventilation to move marijuana between Tijuana and Otay Mesa, Calif.
- semi-submersible “narco-submarines” haul cocaine north.
- ultralight aircraft barnstorm over the border fences to drop 200-pound loads of pot in fields for waiting pickup trucks.
- a catapult used to lob drugs over the border fence between Mexico and Arizona.
