Prosecutor's Office Going After 40 Police Officers For The 2015 Massacre In Tanhuato

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat  

The Attorney General's Office of the Republic (FGR) began the search for and arrest of the federal police who participated in the massacre of 42 alleged members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), in the Michoacán municipality of Tanhuato, in May 2015.

So far, the Federal Ministerial Police (PFM) has completed eight of 40 arrest warrants for the crime of homicide issued by a federal judge against former agents and commanders involved in the case, security sources revealed to EL UNIVERSAL.

The detainees, some of them active members of the National Guard, were detained at the Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation Number 17, in Buenavista Tomatlán, municipality of Tierra Caliente Michoacán, to be presented before the judge who is handling the criminal case.

Among those wanted by the FGR is the director of the State Investigation Agency (AEI) of Chihuahua, Cuauhtémoc Serrano Escobedo, former command of the Federal Police and who was reportedly part of the group of federal agents who clashed with armed civilians in Rancho del Sol, according to the version released by the disappeared National Security Commission (CNS).

The Secretary of Public Security of Chihuahua, Emilio García Ruiz, confirmed yesterday that Serrano Escobedo is wanted by the Attorney General's Office of the Republic, whose ministerial agents went to the entity to apprehend him. The man since Tuesday no longer showed up for his work and is a fugitive from justice.

Due to an anonymous complaint about the presence of armed civilians and armored vehicles on a property, elements of the defunct Federal Police carried out an operation on the morning of May 22, 2015.

According to the official report of the CNS, headed at the time by Monte Alejandro Rubido García, federal agents were assaulted while driving on the Nogales-Mexico highway, at kilometer 371.5 of the Guadalajara-Ecuandureo section, by some armed individuals traveling in a white Tacoma truck.

After the persecution, they clashed with the alleged hitmen of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel inside Rancho del Sol, in Tanhuato, leaving 42 civilians and a federal policeman killed, as well as two people injured.

The Federal Police secured a total of 43 firearms on the spot, including 40 long guns, two short fire and a rocket launcher, as well as 14 vehicles.

However, in its investigation of the facts, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) accused the authorities of lying when they said that it was a confrontation and determined that the Federal Police incurred the excessive use of force, in addition to committing 22 arbitrary executions during the operation, by which it issued recommendation 4VG/2016 against the CNS, for serious human rights violations.

In 2016, the agency pointed out that the authorities falsified information regarding the circumstances in which the police operation took place, since they caught the alleged criminals asleep, manipulated the crime scene by planting weapons to 16 victims and tortured two detainees.

In addition, he indicated that 13 victims were behind their perpetrators; five were killed from a helicopter gunship that arrived at the place; one was exposed to direct fire while still alive, and three, despite being already arrested, were killed.

The CNDH determined that, between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. on May 22, 2015, federal police sneaked into the building, overwhelmed the people who were guarding the entrance, who were asleep, and subsequently carried out the fateful operation.

For what happened, the agency asked the federal authorities to repair the damage to the families of the 22 victims arbitrarily executed.

He also filed a criminal complaint with the then Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) for the events that occurred in Tanhuato, a municipality adjacent to the state of Jalisco, the main seat of the CJNG.

After learning the results of the report of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), relatives of the people killed in 2015 by the Federal Police, in Rancho del Sol, asked the authorities for justice.

Three years later, in August 2018, elements of the disappeared Federal Police arrested 14 members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, during operations in Jalisco and Quintana Roo, six of them belonging to the Los Guerreros cell, which is linked to the confrontation in Rancho del Sol and the shooting down of an Army helicopter in Jalisco.

The brothers Alonso, Javier and Leonardo Guerrero Covarrubias, the latter two already detained, are part of the Los Guerreros gang, at the service of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a criminal organization led by the Michoacán native Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes aka ‘El Mencho’ who has a strong presence between the limits of Jalisco and Michoacán.

Federal authorities indicated that the day before the events that occurred in Tanhuato, the Guerrero Covarrubias brothers met at Rancho del Sol.

El Universal