The Mexican Drug Cartel’s Hand-​​Made Tanks

El Mon­struo 2011 is a home­made armored tank, the lat­est weapons inno­va­tion from Los Zetas, one of Mexico’s largest and most bru­tal drug traf­fick­ing organizations.

El Blog del Narco reports that the Mex­i­can army cap­tured the vehi­cle last week in Ciu­dad Meir, a bor­der town that has been the site of a bloody turf bat­tle between Los Zetas and their for­mer bosses, the pow­er­ful Gulf Cartel.

Army offi­cials say the new model is an upgrade from pre­vi­ous armed vehi­cles used by the cartels:


El Mon­struo 2011 has a top speed of 68 mph and could hold up to 12 peo­ple. Now author­i­ties have taken another off the street — one that shows how every iter­a­tion gets tougher.









This one, dubbed the «com­pacto» ver­sion of El Mon­struo 2010, appears to be a 2011 Ford Super­Duty truck chas­sis armored all over and given a bay for fer­ry­ing up to 10 gun­men. Cap­tured in Jalisco, this ver­sion also came with its own enter­tain­ment sys­tem via speak­ers built into the back hatch, along with "satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment". And unlike the El Mon­struo ’11, the builders were smart enough to pro­tect the truck’s wheels from stray bullets.









Source: blogdelnarco, businessinsider