Nuevo Laredo, Mexico—The sister city of Laredo, Texas once again finds itself as ground zero for the cartel insurgency holding millions of Mexicans captive. The police chief of Nuevo Laredo has been missing for days, and his two brothers were found shot and killed.

The entire police department of Nuevo Laredo had previously been disbanded, and the Mexican military have taken over the the city and declared the equivalent of martial law. This occurred in 2011 as cartel violence, car bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings increased, with rival gangs fighting over the lucrative head of the US I-35 corridor.

The missing police chief was reportedly only hours into his new job attempting to rebuild the disbanded force when he went missing. A similar incident occurred in Nuevo Laredo in 2005 when another new police chief was killed within hours of taking the position.

Breitbart News obtained an exclusive face-to-face interview with a Mexican military commander who wished to remain anonymous one week ago. The interview occurred in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The commander insisted that the police force was “disbanded due to cartels targeting their homes and families.” The commander insisted the police force “fled for their lives.”

In another exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Laredo, TX Police spokesman Joe Baeza contradicted the assertions of the Mexican military commander and stated, “the police force in Nuevo Laredo was disbanded due to corruption. There were instances on entire city blocks being shut down and cordoned off by the police so that the cartels could do their business and killings.” Baeza asserted, “any officers there who would not work for the cartels were targeted, but many of them chose to work for the cartels.”

The Mexican Cartel War has claimed between 45,000-65,000 lives in recent years, many of them just miles from the US/Mexico border.