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Sunday, January 15, 2023

LFM's Fresa and the Chained Reporters. Two of The Three Reporters Were Released

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat 


Two of the three men who were kidnapped for writing on a Facebook page which covered local cartel news have been released. There is no word on where the third kidnapped man currently is. 


The men were involved in running a page which covered organized crime in a region controlled by La Familia Michoacana (LFM). Shortly before the men were abducted, the page called for LFM boss La Fresa to stop extortion fees on civilians. Many believe La Fresa may be involved in organizing their abduction.



Escenario Calentano

Alan García Aguilar is a lawyer by trade, however, five years ago, he chose to pursue a non-professional endeavor. He created a Facebook page called “Escenario Calentano”, where he covered local organized crime in Guerrero, during his free time.



The Facebook page allowed for a quick and direct line of communication with the people of Guerrero who wanted to understand the cartel groups which violently disrupted their communities. García Aguilar has lived in the state for almost 15 years so he personally understood just how often organized crime impacted daily life. 



Altamirano, the city where García Aguilar currently lives, is believed to be controlled by the cartel group La Familia Michoacana (LFM). 



He created posts on the Escenario Calentano page which profiled men who he alleged worked as LFM hitmen and leadership figures.


According to La Jornada, García Aguilar also covered the corruption of local officials by organized crime. He highlighted messages from his readership which denounced politicians, such as a November 14th post which read:


“The narco-mayor of Tlapehuala [Mayor José Luis Antúnez Guicochea] is starting his narco-fair, meanwhile they cannot find a missing child in a small town. [...] It's such a joke that they can’t find him, all the representatives [rayas] were together on Saturday."


Two other men from Guerrero, Fernando Moreno Villegas and Jesús Pintor Alegre, may have been involved in the daily upkeep of the page. 


The level of involvement that Moreno Villegas and Pintor Alegre had in Escenario Calentano is hard to determine because they are currently making statements minimizing their involvement while clearly under duress, fearing for the safety of their families. 



Fernando Moreno Villegas is a parasitologist and Jesús Pintor Alegre is a professional journalist who worked as a correspondent for the newspaper La Jornada Guerrero (now defunct). He also works as a commentator on the radio station of the Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero.


Some sources, such as Sur Acapulco, say that García Aguilar ran the page as the administrator and authored most of the posts. Other sources, like La Jornada, refer to all three men as the page’s administrators.





The Fateful Message


According to La Jornada, on December 13, Escenario Calentano posted the following: 


"They think they can fool us, just like before. Hahahahaha. But now, we are no longer naïve and able to be fooled, Alfredo [Hurtado Oloscoaga] or El Fresa. 


Now leave the people alone, let them work freely, without extortion fees, without raising prices according to your needs. 


The economy went downhill since the governor [Evelyn Salgado] started to get involved. Organized crime is out."

This message may have angered La Familia Michoacana boss José Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, “El Fresa”. Although it should be noted, there is no direct evidence tying La Fresa to the men of Escenario Calentano.



Fresa lived in the nearby town of San Miguel Totolapan, relatively close to García Aguilar.



How can we know with such certainty where a cartel boss lives? It's quite simple. He told us. 


After a bloody attack in San Miguel Totolapan in October 2022, La Fresa released a video (which you can hear in full, with an English translation here) in which he claimed his hitmen were not behind the killing but instead Fresa was the intended target of the hit from a rival cartel group. 



During this video, La Fresa said “I live in San Miguel [Totolapan]. My house is a block away from the mayor's office. I believe everyone here knows where it’s at and where I live.” 



A LFM regional figure who is believed to operate nearby is Uriel Tabares Martínez, alias “El Médico”. He is believed to have taken over after El Zarco was killed



The Captivity


On December 26 and 27, 2022, all three men who were involved in the Escenario Calentano page were reported missing to police. 


Jesús Pintor Alegre was snatched up by hitmen when he went to buy poster board at a paper store in Altamirano for a school project that his child was working on. 


As soon as the hitmen got a hold of him, they blindfolded him and threw him in the back of a pickup truck. The hitmen would drive for a few hours and meet up with another vehicle, then he’d be pushed into the back of another pickup truck. They shifted him between vehicles often. 



Sometimes the hitmen would make Pintor Alegre stand for hours in the sunlight, blindfolded and chained, but then he’d be put back in a pickup truck and the driving continued. They would sometimes have someone stand on top of him in the back, or cover his body up with boxes or suitcases. 


They gave him food and water twice a day. Sometimes they would stop to let him stand and go to the bathroom near the vehicle. They would often kick and hit him, “for fun.” 


At one point, they made him stand and hit him in the stomach hard with a tire iron. They then told him to get on his knees, as if they were about to execute him. They said they were going to kill him. But they stopped and didn’t kill him, the threat seems to have been a cruel psychological trick. 


Pintor Alegre was held captive alone. The other two men, Fernando Moreno Villegas and Alan García Aguilar were held hostage together. It is presumed that they received similar treatment. 



On January 7, 2023, the hitmen used the mens’ phones to access the Escenario Calentano page and they posted a video interrogation of the captive Moreno Villegas and García Aguilar directly from their account to the page. 


Video Source: Periodistas Desplazados México


The clip was only 41 seconds long and covered in this previous BB post. In the video, the men said the following, as translated by El Huaso:


Moreno Villegas, Red Shirt: My name is Fernando Moreno Villegas. 


García Aguilar, Black Shirt: I am Alan García Aguilar.


Moreno Villegas, Red Shirt: We are part of the team of Escenario Calentano. We are here paying the consequences for the posts made against these people from the Tierra Caliente region of the states of Mexico, Michoacán, and Guerrero.


García Aguilar, Black Shirt: Escenario Calentano was created five years ago. It was me who created it five years ago.

The men are sitting, bound with metal chains that link their wrists and their ankles. They appear to be sitting in front of a silver colored SUV in an outdoor setting. 



Borderland Beat contributor Redlogarythm noted that the underside of a metal structure holding up a roof can be seen reflected in the windows of the SUV, as shown in the graphic below. This type of structure can be seen in outdoor structures throughout the area and in most of Mexico. 


Soon after the video was noticed and reported on, the Escenario Calentano page was deleted, presumably by a hitman. It remains deleted as of the writing of this story, so many details about the page can only be learned through articles covering its content. 





Two Men are Released


On January 11, 2023, Moreno Villegas and Pintor Alegre were loaded into pickup trucks, blind folded and moved. Pintor Alegre says he was driven for a long time and. Suddenly, a hitman yelled at him to get off the truck and he pulled him to the ground roughly. His blindfold was removed and a truck sped off. 


Pintor Alegre looked around and saw a blindfolded Moreno Villegas nearby. He helped him remove the blindfold and the two men found their cellphones tossed nearby but they did not have any charge left in them. They called out for García Aguilar, searching for him nearby but he had evidently not been released. 



The men tried to get their bearings and they noticed the Cuirio bridge, a local landmark near the town of Coyuca de Catalan.


After bathing and eating, the men went to the State Attorney’s Office and were interviewed by authorities about details of their kidnappings.



They gave the interview below after speaking with the FGE.


Video Source: Guardia Nocturna


They said as follows, as translated by Sol Prendido: 

Some moments ago, on January 11, we were held captive in a place that looked similar to [inaudible]. 


After a certain number of days, we were let go [by our captors] but I don't know the exact location of where we were released. 


I was held [in captivity] blindfolded and handcuffed up until this morning, January the 12th. 


We lived through a very dangerous situation. We were accused of running the website Escenario Calentano

Both men continue to minimize and outright deny being involved in Escenario Calentano, claiming that García Aguilar was the only writer of its posts, which is understandable, given the circumstances they lived through. 


Sandra Luz Valdovinos Salmerón, the State Attorney General, later visited Pintor Alegre and spoke with him as a sign of support.



6 comments:

  1. Lucky to be alive. I pray the third is also released unharmed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fresa is good at playing chess

      Delete
    2. Fresa needs to get a real job rather than terrorizing the people.

      Delete
    3. The third obviously gave his life to save these men…

      Delete
    4. Oh God no, that motherfucker.
      @8.43 Me too, but the fact they released 2 and didn't release him gives me a sinking feeling.

      Delete
    5. 3:43 Yeah I agree with you on that one. Stand up guy. Instead of trying to save himself and/or downplay his role, he copped to it and said he created it. Good man, may he rest in peace

      Delete

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