Although confidence in the Mexican police actually keeping an eye on things is on the decline, citizens in the border city of Reynosa can be sure that the local drug cartels are making an effort to keep tabs on their surroundings.

On Friday Mexican officials reported that a drug cartel had used at least 39 surveillance cameras to observe the activities of authorities in the a city of 672,183, which is directly across from McAllen, Texas.

As reported by The Associated Press, all this spying was pretty much in plain sight as the cameras used by the cartel were powered by electric lines above the city streets and had access to the Internet through phone cables along the very same poles. The cameras, which were equipped with modems and were able to operate wirelessly or through commercial providers' lines, were found a day after President Enrique Pena Nieto came to visit the city.

Several of the cameras were focused on an army base, while others were set up outside a marine post, the offices of the attorney general, shopping centers and even some neighborhoods.

An official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, stated that the cartel's cameras were discovered when the government's own surveillance cameras detected suspicious people making installations on poles. Once the authorities caught on to the surveillance, the authorities began to search for more cameras in areas where the cartel would likely want to observe.

On realizing that they were found out, cartel members took down 18 cameras before the authorities could gather them.

The authorities did not name the cartel responsible for the cameras.

The city of Reynosa has been the center of much drug-related violence in recent months. In a April authorities captured a leader of the Gulf Cartel known as El Gafe in the city. As reported by the BBC, this triggered gun battles that ended up leaving at least three people dead on the streets.