Tijuana, Baja California: The Multiple Homicide Offenders

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Given the increase in multiple homicides, authorities in Baja California identified eight leaders of cartel cells and 26 leaders of groups of assassins as responsible

Arriving at the home or point of sale of drugs and indiscriminately murdering whoever is there at the time, and using young people between 16 and 18 years of age as murderers and then murdering them, are the different modus operandi, applied by organized crime cells and detected by the authorities in the last three months in Baja California.

In this scheme, particularly in Tijuana, multiple homicides or massacres impacted incidences and made August the second month to present an increase in the fatal figure during 2022 compared to last year: homicides increased 14.54 percent, from 165 to 188.

June was the first month that violent deaths grew from 200 in 2021, to 210 during the current year. Despite the increase in Tijuana, the incidence of homicides is still down 6.57% statewide, compared to last year.

“Usually they go kill pushers, consumers of their competitors, or their own debtors. They shoot them while they are driving their cars, when they are standing on a corner or when they arrive at the houses, they kick and open the door and then shoot whoever is at hand. Although they carry the order to kill someone specific, they shoot everyone. With this form of attack, there have been several cases in which the target comes out of the attacks alive and his companions die, ”explained an investigator.

FROM “CABO 20”

Before 5:00 a.m. on July 13, a group of gunmen entered and shot five people who had taken drugs and drunk in previous hours in a house located on Sagitario and Mercurio streets of the Sánchez Taboada neighborhood.

The thugs were going after Joshua Geekee Sandoval, a young man invited to the celebration and identified as a drug dealer residing in the United States, as well as an operator of the cell of the recently arrested David López Jiménez "Cabo 20"; once injured, he called his cousin to take him to a hospital.

Geekee assured interviewers that his friend fell on top of him and was fatally shot. That friend was Fernando Javier Casas García, who perished in the hospital and tested positive for methamphetamine and marijuana.

Raúl Abel Rascón Villela and Edgar, 13, were killed in the house, in addition to Adrián, 15, both tested positive for marijuana. They were children of the house owner, Claudia Jazmín Rascón Villela, who was injured and was also under the influence.

THE MURDERERS

During the year, Baja California adds 1,815 violent deaths, of which 1,322 have occurred in Tijuana.

In the areas where the greatest number of violent deaths are taking place, the agencies integrated into the Baja California Peacebuilding and Security Committee determined that those who order or give the go-ahead for the murders mostly do so electronically from Nayarit, Jalisco, Sinaloa and Baja California Sur. They are those already identified (They are presumed innocent until their responsibility is declared by the judicial authority, Art. 13, CNPP”):

For the Sinaloa Cartel:

Jesús Rafael Yocupicio “Cabezón”

Edwin Antonio Rubio López “Max”

Operatives from the Los Arzate and Los Uriarte cells.

CJNG:

Rodolfo López Arellano “Cabo 30” y/o “Solecito”.

Javier Adrián Beltrán Cabrera “Puma”

Isaac Alhiu Chávez Cabrera

CAF-Chapitos:

Edwin Huerta Nuño “El Flaquito”

Leonardo Fabián Robles “Cabo 45”

José Christian Gómez Rosales “El Pitey”.

It’s his criminal seconds-in-command who “green light” the deaths.

At this level, the cell leaders identified by the Intelligence areas of the coordinated State Security forces are in the following neighborhoods:

Centenario:

In the Valle del Alamar neighborhood, which accumulates the highest number of deaths in August, at the lead are the following:

– Edgar Macías “Woker” and Francisco Ibarra “Veneno”, from the CJNG

– Jovani Rochín “Jehová” and Enrique Vidal “Kike”, from the Sinaloa Cartel.

La Presa:

Greater incidence in Granjas Familiares and Villafontana:

-Trinidad Aquino "Rino" and Daniel López (CJNG).

-Alejandro Ruiz “Chloro” and Jovani Rochín “Jehovah” (Sinaloa).

Presa Rural:

– Fabián Espinoza “Güero Puchas” and Bladimir Vivanco “Sick” (CJNG).

– Leonel Thing “Yogui” and Roberto Meraz “Naranjo” (Sinaloa Cartel, CDS)

Cerro Colorado:

The biggest confrontation is for the sale of drugs in the area identified as Guaycura:

– Enrique Rochín “Peter Pan” and “El Chale” (CJNG).

– Edgar Puerta “Boxer” and Eduardo Sicairos “Ángel” (CDS).

Florido-Mariano:

– Luis de Arco “ “Sombra” (CDS).

– Alberto García Meza “Wicho” and Esteban Moroyoqui “Sixto”.

Centro:

– Víctor Manuel Amador Luna “The Godfather” (CJNG).

– Iván Leonardo Peña Peralta “Turbo” and Francisco Rabadán Gudiño “El Aguacate”.

Playas:

– Pedro Herrera Estrada and Pedro Herrera Jelinek (CDS).

– Diego Abel Miranda Rodríguez “El Cateo” and Manuel Velarde García “Meño” (CJNG).

Most of those mentioned above have been arrested as allegedly responsible for some crime, but have been released due to lack of evidence.

In August, these criminal cells dedicated to the retail sale and transfer of drugs murdered more than 190 people. 

In Tijuana, there were four consecutive days with eight murder victims (August 1, 2, 7 and 9, respectively). Another 13 homicides were perpetrated only on August 5 and another 15 violent deaths were carried out in the 24 hours that elapsed from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. between August 17 and 18, prior to the visit of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Baja California. 

TRIPLE, QUADRUPLE AND QUINTUPPLE HOMICIDES

Around 2:03 p.m. on August 4, on Aceituna Street between Bulevar Terán and Tulipanes in the Rancho Hernández neighborhood, Delegación La Presa in Tijuana, authorities found the bodies of five men inside a white GMC Denali, with California license plates 5TE705. 

To date, only two of the victims have been identified, one through their fingerprints, because Enrique Diaz Mirón had criminal records, but his previous crime is unknown.

The second, José Regino Ibáñez Santiago, 41, who according to his family was a taco worker and had disappeared since July 29, said goodbye to his partner saying that he intended to cross into the United States through the area of Tecate, but they did not know with whom he would meet. They identified him on August 15.

On the night of the 6th, in a house located on Calle de la Alfalfa, Escaramuza Charra corner of the Granjas Familiares neighborhood in La Presa, three were murdered: the owner of the house, Lizeth Giovanna Ruelas Calleja, a Sinaloan with a 10 year old addiction problem, his friend Ángel Ricardo Quintero Arcega, 61 years old -with no record- was left sitting in an armchair; and an unidentified man between the ages of 20 and 25, was shot on a bed.

Previously, on March 11, two men and a woman were shot inside a haunted house on a ravine in Granjas Familiares. And in the same region, on March 29, in an apartment on Calle Bajío number 118, they killed two other men between 30 and 35 years old.

On August 17, shortly before midnight, men who fled in a maroon sedan arrived at a home on Callejón Manzano and Moscow of the Costa Azul Section in Playas de Tijuana, and ended the lives of four men who were in the house, some inside and others outside.

The authorities arrived during the first minutes of Friday the 19th, one of the victims was taken to the hospital, but she died.

At press time, the victims have not been identified and the owners of the house have not claimed ownership. "That place is a drug sales point identified in the mapping of the operational police, the addicts use that access and go down to the beach to get high," explained an investigator, in addition to acknowledging that there is no progress in the folder and they’re investigating whether these deaths are related to the murder of Christian Morado Armenta, committed in the same area.

FORMER DEDICATED REAL ESTATE OFFICER: FAILED THUGS

On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 30, they shot Jonathan Jesús Molina Camarena, a former employee of the State Public Services Commission in the government of Francisco Vega de Lamadrid, and an auditor in the Rosarito City Council chaired by Mirna Rincón between 2016 and 2017.

The victim reported that he is currently engaged in real estate with his father, named Carlos, a lawyer by profession and with businesses in the vicinity of Puerto Nuevo in Rosarito. He claims not to have problems with anyone, nor has he received threats. In public records he doesn’t have any company registered, only two properties in Tijuana.

He indicated that that Tuesday he had gone out in his Jeep Rubicon to run an errand with a worker named Adán Torres. On their way home, on the Ensenada-Tijuana Free Highway, heading south, in front of the Charly's Place establishment in Playas de Rosarito, they were intercepted by three vehicles -two vans and a sedan-, from which several individuals dressed in black got out.“…it seemed that they were wearing civl servant clothing, as if they were police officers,” Molina Camarena described.

After seeing unmarked cars and weapons, he maneuvered to avoid them and they were shot -reported at 2:57 pm-, leaving him and his companion injured.

Molina explained that, while injured, he drove in the opposite direction, but they made very little progress and the car stopped, so they got out to take shelter in a local establishment and wait for the police, while the attackers fled towards Puerto Nuevo.

According to the ballistics there were four shooters, 16 shell casings of 7.62×39 were located, 9mm, .45 and 5.56 X 45 mm. The victims' car registered 60 between entries and exits, also in the windshields; none of the weapons have a known history. 

In Rosarito, criminal control is held by operators for the brothers René and Alfonso Arzate, from Cartel De Sinaloa, who were facing Edgar Sauceda "El Güero Pecas", murdered in early August in Guadalajara by his bosses, after being suspected of betraying to two leaders of the CJNG, Roberto Ruiz Velazco "El Doble R" and Gerardo González Ramírez "El Apá".

Three other youths were shot on August 11, while traveling from Rosarito to Tijuana. According to witness accounts, the chase and shooting began in Popotla and ended at almost one in the morning on the Ensenada-Tijuana Scenic Highway, at the toll booth in Playas de Tijuana; 13 shell casings from two 9mm caliber weapons were found at the scene, none had been used before in another crime in Baja California.

The thugs also went back to Rosarito.

The victims reported “without priors”, David Alvarado Cruz -recently arrived from Ciudad Morelos- and Edgar Alexander Gómez, claimed not to know the reason for the prolonged attack.

A man who was only identified as Manuel "El Pelón" was left dead at the scene.

PREGNANT FEMALE, DOUBLE MURDER

Another relevant case among the violent deaths that occurred in August and related to cartel murderers, was the double murder of Cristina Flores, pregnant with her unborn baby on August 20 at the SITT station on Calle Ferrocarril in Margarita Residencial, an area identified by the authorities as a point of sale for drugs.

The investigators established that the woman and her partner, Andrés Millán, with a history of addiction and who was injured, were selling drugs and attacked by a man around 25 years old who is in charge of selling drugs in the Buena Vista neighborhood. They didn’t provide his name, but he is identified as the mastermind of several attacks against drug dealers in the area for robberies, injuries and homicides.

Zeta Tijuana