Rival drug cartels in Mexico are designing and building their own heavily armored vehicles.
The improvised armor is typically equipped with swiveling turrets, sniper peepholes, oil-slick pumps, steel battering rams and a device that scatters nails on roadways.
According to McClatchy, drug gangs are “upping their game,” as two recently seized armored trucks boasted steel plating approximately an inch thick.
“You can easily fit 20 armed people in here,” an unidentified army officer told El Porvenir TV as he showed the inside of one of the vehicles.
The officer said the vehicle were capable of withstanding fire from 50-caliber mounted weapons, as well as grenade blasts at close range.
Mexican media frequently refers to the indigenously designed armored vehicles as “Los Monstruos,” or The Monsters, with security consultants dubbing them “rhino trucks.”
Interestingly enough, the narco-tanks haven’t yet been used to challenge Mexico’s army, with the cartels deploying rudimentary armor in an apparent attempt to intimidate rival groups.
It should be noted that cartels have also built homemade submarines to transport cocaine north from the Andean region. Some of the subs are over 100-feet long, can travel as deep as 25 feet below the surface and ship up to eight tons.
