Authorities stated Thursday the bloodbath of 20 townspeople in southern Mexico seems to have been the work of a drug lord who used social media to attempt to blame a rival gang.
The brand new revelations illustrate how Mexican drug cartels are more and more utilizing social media to apportion blame for assaults and mislead authorities and the general public.
Ricardo Mejia, Mexico's assistant secretary of public security, stated Thursday that authorities had raided 5 properties belonging to the Hurtado brothers, who function underneath the title Familia Michoacana cartel. These raids discovered ranches, luxurious houses and a menagerie together with a tiger, a zebra, antelopes and stuffed wild animals.
The Oct. 5 assault within the city of Totolapan killed the city's mayor, his father and 18 different males. Duty for the assault was initially claimed in a video attributed to a near-extinct gang generally known as the Tequileros. Males at nighttime, shadowy video stated they carried out the assault and had been retaking Totolapan.
The Tequileros had lengthy terrorized the city, however had been chased out years in the past by a vigilante group believed to have been backed by the Familia Michoacana, which dominates the realm.
José Alfredo Hurtado — recognized by his nickname "The Strawberry" — leads the Familia Michoacana, alongside together with his brother Johnny. Hurtado posted a video a number of days later saying he was the meant goal of the taking pictures and had narrowly escaped.
"The assault was geared toward me," Hurtado stated describing the occasions through which gunmen entered the city and opened hearth on a gathering the mayor was holding with different officers — apparently members of a vigilante group.
However Mejia stated Thursday that the capo's personal group in all probability killed them.
"In response to a severe line of investigation, it was they who carried out the mass execution and tried to make it seem as if one other group," Mejia stated.
Native media had reported that the Hurtado brothers might have been upset as a result of the Totolapan mayor and the group of vigilantes he apparently headed had rejected the capos' alternative of one other man to steer the city.
Hours after the Oct. 5 shootings, a gaggle of armed males appeared in a video filmed round nightfall, claiming to be the Tequileros and saying they had been retaking management of Totolapan, which is close to the mountains the place a lot of Mexico's opium poppy crop is grown.
With poor lighting and sound, the Tequileros video was not like the extra slickly produced cartel movies which have turn into the norm, through which well-armed teams of masked cartel gunmen frequently threaten rivals and authorities, and declare or reject credit score for killings. The Tequileros video now seems to have been a pretend.
Hurtado, whose nickname "The Strawberry" is a slang time period in Mexico for somebody with high-end tastes, appeared in his personal video just a few days later sporting a Gucci T-shirt and an expensive-looking wristwatch.
Hurtado stated he had deliberate to attend the assembly at which Mayor Conrado Mendoza and his father, a former mayor, had been killed, however that the gunmen opened hearth earlier than he had descended from his bulletproof automobile, permitting him to narrowly escape.
He talked about that he had cooperated prior to now with the deceased mayor in combating the Tequileros gang, saying, "We began this battle collectively, the mayor and us."
"We had arrange this assembly with the mayor and his father, and the peace group they've," he stated, referring to a vigilante group that had been lively in Totolapan.
In Mexico, residents of cities underneath strain from one cartel typically arrange vigilante teams and switch to rival cartels for assist in combating off the oppressors. Cartels make a lot of their cash in Mexico from extorting safety funds from native farmers and businessmen.
In 2016, Totolapan locals acquired so fed up with abductions by the Tequileros that they kidnapped the gang chief's mom to leverage the discharge of others.
Whereas the Tequileros lengthy trusted trafficking opium paste from native poppy growers, the rising use of the artificial opioid fentanyl had decreased the demand for opium paste and lowered the extent of violence in Guerrero.
The Tequileros gang is an affiliate of the highly effective Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartel. The Division of Justice considers the Jalisco cartel to be "one of many 5 most harmful transnational legal organizations on the earth." The cartel's chief, Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," is among the many most sought by Mexican and U.S. authorities.
AFP contributed to this report.