These are the features of Mexico's monstrous homemade narco tanks

As drug-trafficking-related violence in Mexico raged, the cartels came up with a radical solution for improving their capabilities in face-offs with other criminal groups and Mexican security services.

Narco tanks are homemade armored vehicles, also known in Spanish as "monstruo" for their hulking size. They reached peak popularity in 2011 as the Mexican military seized a garage from the Zetas drug-trafficking organization that was being used to construct the vehicles. At that point, criminal gangs could operate military-like vehicles out in the open with apparent impunity.