Tijuana’s municipal police confiscated 15 firearms and detained 204 people during the week of May 11 to 17, 2026, according to the city’s Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (public security secretariat). The operation also netted large quantities of methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin from the streets of Mexico’s largest border city.
Of the 15 weapons seized, 12 were handguns and three were long guns. Officers also recovered five prop or replica firearms. The drug haul included 1,132 individual doses and 60 grams of methamphetamine, 293 doses and 165 grams of marijuana, and 112 doses of heroin.
Arrests Span Drug Dealing to Attempted Homicide
Among the 204 people detained, 58 face charges related to drug dealing, a category known in Mexican law as narcomenudeo (street-level drug sales). Another 25 were arrested for vehicle theft, 11 for illegal firearms possession, and one for attempted homicide. Police also picked up 26 individuals who had active judicial warrants.
Officers recovered 27 stolen vehicles during the same seven-day period and returned them to their owners. The vehicle theft recoveries point to an ongoing problem in Tijuana, where car theft remains one of the most common property crimes affecting residents on both sides of the border.
Weekly Security Reviews Under Mayor Burgueño
Mayor Ismael Burgueño Ruiz reviews these weekly crime statistics through a dedicated security roundtable, a format the current administration has used to track enforcement metrics across the city’s police delegations. The roundtable model allows municipal officials to identify high-crime zones and shift patrol resources accordingly.
The heavy focus on narcomenudeo arrests is consistent with a broader enforcement push against street-level drug markets in Baja California. Methamphetamine, often referred to locally as “crystal” or “ice,” has been the dominant street drug in Tijuana for years, and the 1,132 doses seized in a single week give a sense of the scale of retail drug activity in the city.
Tijuana, home to roughly two million people and located directly south of San Diego, processes tens of thousands of daily border crossings and remains a focal point for both federal and municipal security operations. The city’s municipal police force operates alongside state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the Mexican military, which has maintained a presence in Baja California under the long-running Operation Baja California.
The weekly enforcement figures were first reported by Punto Norte.