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Major Narco Tank Workshop Discovered in Reynosa, Tamaulipas

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By Samantha Johnson / May 17, 2026

By “El Huaso” for Borderland Beat

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) seized 15 homemade armored trucks, and six unarmored vehicles after executing a search warrant at a warehouse in Colonia Campestre in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The property appears to have been used as storage and a workshop for creating homemade armored vehicles by Los Metros.

According to data from the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), of the 597 narco tanks seized nationwide between January 2023 and June 2025, more than half were confiscated in Tamaulipas.
The overwhelming majority of homemade armored vehicles are concentrated in Tamaulipas and Michoacán, where clashes between criminal groups frequently take place in rural, open terrain that favors the use of mobile cover and protected transport. Far fewer are seen in states where violence is more heavily concentrated in urban environments, such as Guanajuato or Baja California, where armored vehicles are less practical in densely built areas.

The seizures are so frequent in Tamaulipas that local government destroys the captured vehicles by the dozen in monthly filmed events which are later posted online. A recent video showed a number of the captured narco tanks appeared to have the same design, suggesting that they were made with the same plans by a trained team, possibly in a large workshop that that captured here.

Sources: FGR Prensa, El Financiero, El Imparcial, FGR April


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