By: Brayden Yin

In the United States, many truck owners take pleasure in modifying their trucks to have oversized wheels, heavy-duty suspension, and exhaust pipes that cough out black soot, turning them into “monsters”. They can be found in organized events such as demolition derbies and mud bogs. In comparison to illegal trucks created by criminal groups, these seem almost cute. In Mexico, drug cartels retrofit pickups with battering rams, four-inch-thick steel plates welded onto the chassis, and turrets for machine guns, bringing the idea of a “monster truck” to terrifying new heights.

Some of Mexico’s most notorious organized crime groups, such as Jalisco New Generation Cartel, use these armored trucks to fight gun battles with police; others, such as the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel, use them to fight each other. Cartels emblazon the exteriors of these trucks with their initials or camouflage patterns, making them often indistinguishable from military vehicles.

The interior of these trucks features bulletproof glass, a large array of buttons and lights, metal seats with turrets for gunmen to lean their rifle through, and a hatch like that of a tank. The exterior is armored with four-inch-thick steel plates, the work of cartel welders—mostly mechanics who have experience in cars that smuggle cargoes of drugs across borders. This costs about $117,000, but turrets, bulletproof tires, and battering rams take the cartel mechanics more time to outfit and will run the bill higher.

The trucks used for these armored beasts are usually the Ford Lobo (F-150 in the US) or the Ford Raptor. Cartels will also use sport-utility vehicles like the Chevy Tahoe, or even flatbeds, dump trucks, or dually trucks with two rear wheels on each side, immune to all attacks save for the anti-vehicle weaponry of the Mexican military.

Jorge Septien, an expert on ballistics and armaments, explained, “It has to do with a status symbol. The first ones we saw were practically blow-torched and welded in a very shoddy way. These days, when approaching from a distance, they look like a military vehicle.”