"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Drugs from the Sinaloa Cartel continue to be stolen and operators of the Arellano Félix Cartel (CAF), a mafia identified as responsible for the thefts, continue to be murdered. They kill them regardless of their position in the criminal organization chart or if they participate in the theft of drugs from their competitors.
Between January 5 and 17, three armed attacks were carried out, the result: two men murdered and the facade of the Epic children's recreation center damaged. A gun used in these attacks was the same one fired in the homicidal attack at the LH Lomas pharmacy, where, according to the State Attorney General's Office (FGE), the victim who survived was Pablo Edwin Huerta Nuño alias El Flaquito, ringleader of a CAF cell.
“All those who are related to the criminal operations of Pablo Edwin Huerta Nuño el Flaquito, Héctor García el Kado or James Brayan Corona el Apache, have a bullseye on their backs,” commented an investigator from the Intelligence area of the Federal Government.
“There are versions – given by some detainees – that Sinaloa’s operatives offered large rewards for the death of these three,” but they didn’t mention amounts.
But neither the threat nor the homicides seem to make an impact on the traffickers-thieves of the CAF, nor on the agents, police, elements of the National Guard and corrupt soldiers who support them in drug thefts.
On January 13, a group of six soldiers were exposed on social networks as participants in a drug theft committed the day before at 7:20 a.m. in a drug laboratory located in a ranch in the Ciénega Redonda section, Colonia Luis Echeverría of the town El Hongo, in the municipality of Tecate.
On the afternoon of Sunday, January 14, gunfire was recorded at the EPIC children's entertainment establishment, located in the Chapultepec subdivision, Tijuana.
By January 17, the soldiers had already been arrested for participating in the illegal search and the alleged theft of 1,050 kilos of crystal meth, an AR-15 long gun, an AK-47 and two short weapons. On the morning of Friday the 19th, ZETA news made it public in its printed edition.
That Friday night, another pick-up with soldiers, also stationed in Tijuana - confirmed by the Secretariat of National Defense - participated in a new drug theft. The Sinaloa Cartel criminals exposed them again, posting the video online on January 21.
This time, the illegal operation in which a white panel truck also participated, accompanied by the military vehicle, was carried out at a home in the Mariano Matamoros subdivision.
"Due to the type of cars, we believe that the soldiers are being easily recruited by agents of the State Prosecutor's Office, because legal searches are already being carried out with them," they said from the Security Table, as well as the anonymous complaint that pointed to elements of the FGE. However, the Sedena did not officially confirm it, despite the fact that the first group of soldiers involved have been arrested for a week, without any information from the Second Military Zone if they have been charged.
THE SAME GUN
The protagonist of the attacks in question is a .9 millimeter caliber pistol, used around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, when two armed men entered the pharmacy located on Avenida Las Ferias at the intersection with Puertos Sur Oriente Street of the Hipódromo subdivision. They shot another male who minutes before arrived to get a medical shot, he was accompanied by a bodyguard.
In the end, the four men fired and one of those attacked was wounded. He and his partner were wearing t-shirts with the official FEMDO logos and caps with the words Special Forces, at the bottom it read F.E.F and below FLAKITO.
Due to the video surveillance images in which it is observed that the subject shot has identical similarities to those of Flaquito - with chubby cheeks - and because in one of the seized cars with blood stains, they found documents of the son of the alleged drug trafficker. Although they fled the scene, authorities considered the CAF leader as the target of that armed attack.
Later, the same gun was used to kill Esteban Lizárraga Lagarde, 31, at 6:00 p.m. on January 5, when he was driving a Volkswagen Jetta car, with license plates 8H0W587, on Bulevar El Rosario, in front of Plaza La Pajarita, Santa Fe Delegation.
The authorities indicate that the victim was accompanied by Jorge E. García, 22, who suffered injuries to his abdomen and face.
The reporter said he heard “eight gunshots” and that the two individuals responsible fled in a white sedan.
At the scene they found nine 9 mm caliber shell casings, four bullet holes in the windshield, five cell phones in the passenger seat, and on the mat, in the front, right side, another shell casing, another bullet in the left rear part of the car and two reddish brown spots.
They used the weapon again in the shooting against the facade of the Epic party and bounce house, at Avenida Monterrey number 3215, Neidhart neighborhood. The incident was reported to the emergency numbers at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 14.
The wall was struck by 13 bullets, the same number of shell casings were left at the scene, as well as two rounds. The weapons used were one .9 millimeter caliber and another .40. Four children's parties were held that afternoon and in only one of the cases, workers at the venue said they didn’t have the name of the parents or the party.
The FGE reported that the casings had tested positive with “at least 13 events that occurred in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, including homicides and attempted homicides,” but they didn’t say which ones.
The revolver surfaced again in “the death by firearm projectile,” which occurred at 8:42 a.m. on January 17 on the road to Rancho Kumiai in the Natura subdivision. The slender corpse, dressed in black, was abandoned on the dirt road; He was identified as José Nerlictff, 33 years old. He had three gunshot wounds to the head.
He was also wounded in the neck, arms and back; Eleven 9 millimeter caliber casings were collected near his corpse.
MORE MURDERED LINKED TO CAF
On January 22, at 9:45 p.m., on Avenida Hipódromo corner with Avenida Tapachula, in the parking lot of Farmacias Roma in the Hipódromo neighborhood, a subject was reported shot. When the authorities arrived they found Damián Antonio Meza, 29, dead. Witnesses reported that he had been shot by a man wearing a gray jacket, who left the scene accompanied by a female in a white Ford truck.
After interrogating one of the people close to the victim, she pointed out that the young man was a legal resident in the United States and was dedicated to crossing cocaine to California, in addition to saying: “He works with El Flaquito.”
The body with a head wound was found on the side of a Nissan Sentra, license plates CU41Z63 from the State of California, and a .40 caliber pistol casing. The victim was carrying a silver metal chain and a black plastic key.
The previous month, at 5:00 p.m. on December 28 in Callejón del Beso in the neighborhood identified as Villagomez, in the vicinity of the Puerta de Hierro subdivision, a 37-year-old woman reported the armed attack against her husband, Adán Corona Flores, 40 years old.
When the police arrived, they confirmed that the man had gunshot wounds to the chest and head. He was sitting in the passenger seat aboard a white van that had damage to the body and windows.
The murderers, two men, arrived and fled the scene in a recent model gray Toyota Tundra pick-up.
“The wife of the deceased stated that they had arrived at the place to rent a house, and that they had already had contact with the owners. The alleged perpetrator arrived and without saying a word carried out the hit”; The victim reported that she worked in construction sector and had been unemployed for a few months.
The Intelligence areas of the local authorities identified the injured man as a cousin of James Brayan Corona el Apache, another CAF leader; however, after corroborating information with the United States, they found no relationship between the parents of both American citizens.
The authorities are investigating the subsequent publication of an audio on social networks of pages managed by organized crime, in which a subject who allegedly identifies himself as El Apache, claims to have been attacked. On December 30 in the Hipódromo subdivision, on Bugambilias Street, he mocks his enemies because he managed to flee.
Other attacks on victims identified by the authorities of the Baja California Security Committee as members of the CAF, which occurred last year, were:
– January 30, in the afternoon, Ricardo Verber Campos, 45, shot in the parking lot of the Galerías shopping center in the Hipódromo neighborhood in Tijuana.
– May 4, when leaving the Pub Coffe Bar 01 in the Gabilondo neighborhood, Cristian López Beltrán was attacked, who was left dead at the scene; and the body of Ángel Valles Rodríguez, found minutes later in front of the FGE offices in Zona Río. Both victims were related to David Gil Martínez (29 years old), identified as a survivor of an armed attack in 2021 and son of the former commander of the Baja California FGE, Lorenzo Martínez Mayorga.
-May 20 in San Vicente, Ensenada, ten people were killed and ten injured inside of a Razer all terrain vehicle, at the El Cachanillazo racing event.
– July 9, at night, in the parking lot of Soriana Chapultepec, they killed Víctor Manuel Gil García, the body was carrying two magazines in his clothes. He had a criminal record in Mexico and the United States.
-July 10, in the Plaza Río parking lot, they murdered Fidel Lucero Álvarez, 38 years old; They had put a GPS on the Jeep Sahara that he was driving.
– On October 1, four men and a woman were murdered in the Cantamar Dunes -Los Arenales- in Rosarito.
CDS HITMEN MURDERED
Pablo Santos Camacena, alias Julio Pablo Cruz 16 and/or El Oaxaco, 27 years old, identified as a hitman and trafficker at the service of the Sinaloa Cartel, was wanted by the FGE California for the crime of homicide, but his enemies found him before the authorities did.
At 3:09 p.m. on January 11, the emergency numbers received a call reporting that on Renacimiento and Misión Santo Tomas streets in the Kino neighborhood, in the Cerro Colorado district, aboard a gray 2009 Hyundai Elantra, license plate 6JDJ139 , they found the body of a man with gunshot wounds to the chest.
Leader of the same Camacena Sinaloa criminal cell, José Asbiel Torres Ramírez, alias Andrés Arreola and/or El Tate, was killed on January 17; He was naked, tortured and strangled inside a Nissan Xterra truck with California plates on Calle Puerta Platas and Valle de los Venados, in the Hacienda Los Venados neighborhood.
The FGE was looking for them both, with three homicide warrants. They had been tracking them since August 29, 2023, when they discovered a center with video surveillance cameras that the CDS had installed in the Las Torres, Magisterial, 10 de Mayo and Nido de las Águilas neighborhoods, Otay Centenario Delegation in Tijuana, deceiving citizens with $120 cameras that they controlled.
The final quarter of last year, faced with impunity, Torres had taken control, and "when any of the members of his cell were detained, he called to demand that they be released and threatened the police with death."
Carlos Ramírez Coria alias El Lakra, also from the CDS, with an arrest warrant for homicide, was killed by elements of the Tijuana Municipal Police on January 19, after a shootout on Calle 4 in the Granjas Familiares División del Norte neighborhood, in the Centenario district, around eight in the morning.
“Police try to pull over the occupants of a Jeep Cherokee –verbal commands are given through the loudspeaker, which they ignore by speeding away in reverse. Gunfire begins, the police unit is struck several times. The attack is repelled while the assailants are reversing at full speed, their vehicle hits a parked vehicle with Baja California license plates BKA555A, which hits the unit several times,” the police report states. The shooting continued while one of the suspects ran away, until they wounded him and "... they removed the weapon that was in his hand and the other that he had inside his waistband in order to give him first aid," but he was declared dead at the scene.
Tijuana, Baja California
Zeta Tijuana
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