Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel Focuses Attacks Against Politicians In Laja Bajío

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Criminal group erodes municipal governments says specialist David Saucedo. 

The murder of Morena's candidate for the municipal presidency of Celaya, Gisela Gaytán Gutiérrez, which occurred on Monday is related to at least 7 more attacks against politicians, including former candidates or former mayors, they have all occurred in the area identified by the authorities as being influenced by the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

These are events that occurred in municipalities such as Apaseo el Alto, Celaya, Cortazar, Juventino Rosas and Villagrán especially, although the municipalities of Coroneo and Moroleón are also added.

So far, four of the homicides have been directly linked to the criminal group led at the time by José Antonio Yépez Ortiz alias 'El Marro', who is serving a sentence for the crime of kidnapping in a federal maximum security prison.

Violence in Guanajuato: Cartel and political murders

The first of them was on November 30, 2019, the day in which an armed criminal cell entered a trucking business owned by Hugo Estefanía Monroy, former PRD mayor of Cortazar, and murdered him. To date, there is no record of detainees, however it is known that the former official was investigated for alleged links to the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Today his son Mauricio Estefanía is a candidate for the Citizen Movement for the municipal presidency of Cortazar.

Subsequently, the murder of the PAN candidate for the municipal presidency of Juventino Rosas, Juan Antonio Acosta Cano, occurred in January 2021. This crime is one of those for which there is a report of detainees, it is Juan Carlos 'N', alias 'El Taz'. During the capture, several searches were carried out in the city with other detainees, one of them the traffic director of this district, Juan Carlos Jiménez Badillo, as well as Rosendo 'N' and Jorge 'N', the latter in possession of weapons, drugs and money, all linked by the authority to the local cartel.

The 2021 electoral contest had just begun while the candidate for the municipal presidency of Moroleón, Alma Barragán, was holding a rally and was shot dead. Days later, Fernando 'N' was arrested in the municipality of Yuriria and later his accomplices Benito 'N' and Miguel Ángel 'N', linked by the authorities to the criminal group mentioned here.

The last one in which the participation of hitmen from the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel is being investigated is that of Morena's candidate for mayor of Celaya Gisela Gaytán according to sources from the Attorney General's Office of the State of Guanajuato.

For security analyst David Saucedo, homicide has become a tool of control by the criminal group to maintain pressure on its hegemony in the areas where it operates.

"What we know so far is that the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has been characterized precisely by this posture of confronting and eroding municipal governments in the areas where it wants criminal domination of the activities they carry out, since it controls, for example, the theft of hydrocarbons in Pemex pipelines and the sale of drugs as well," he said.

He recalled that in Celaya not only the Morena candidate was murdered but also the son of former mayor Javier Mendoza and it has been the center of the murder of police officers derived from the direct attack by the municipal authorities on the structures of this organized crime group.

"It seems to me that the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel considers that the municipal government of Celaya headed by Javier Mendoza of PAN extraction is the government that has caused the most losses to the cartel, they decided to strengthen the Morena candidate a little. The information we have up to this point is that the candidate Gisela Gaytán did have threats from the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel because they made her offers but she correctly declined to receive them, unfortunately it had this tragic outcome, that is, the cartel retaliated for the refusal that it received from Gisela Gaytán".

Other cases that have occurred in that area were those of José Remedios Aguirre, candidate for the municipal presidency of Apaseo el Alto for Morena, who was murdered at the end of a campaign event in May 2018. In this case, there is no report of detained people.

His wife María del Carmen Ortiz Terrazas became the municipal president, however at least a dozen officials of that administration were murdered during her term, including several police directors.

Israel Morales Bermúdez, former mayor of Coroneo, disappeared in 2019 and his whereabouts were never known again, and the murders of David Sánchez Malagón, former PRI mayor of Apaseo el Alto, and Salvador Acosta, former PAN mayor of Villagrán, are added to the report. No one has been brought to justice for these events.

"In most cases of the attacks against these politicians, the masterminds haven’t been found, every time these events occur, unfortunately, this endless dispute between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, many municipal governments "They have been stuck between a rock and a hard place without powers or weapons to be able to confront these criminal organizations of this size. Of course, a real synergy is needed between the three levels of government to be able to confront these organized crime organizations," the analyst concluded.

What attacks were there in Guanajuato?

May 7, 2019: disappearance of Israel Morales Bermúdez, former mayor of Coroneo.

May 11, 2018: homicide of José Remedios Aguirre, former Morena candidate for Apaseo el Alto.

November 30, 2019: murder of Hugo Estefanía Monroy, former PRD mayor of Cortazar.

January 12, 2021: homicides of Juan Antonio Acosta Cano, PAN candidate for mayor of Juventino Rosas.

May 26, 2021: murder of Alma Barragán, Citizen Movement candidate for the presidency of Moroleón.

June 16, 2021: homicide of David Sánchez Malagón, former PRI mayor of Apaseo el Alto

March 30, 2022: homicide of Salvador Acosta, former PAN mayor of Villagrán

April 1, 2024: murder of Gisela Gaytán Gutiérrez, Morena candidate for mayor of Villagrán.

Guanajuato: Murder of Morena candidate signals escalation of political violence 

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