Chivis Martínez for Borderland Beat
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Former Nuevo Laredo Mayor goes missing
Benjamín Galván Gómez, a former mayor of Nuevo Laredo in the period 2011 - 2013, disappeared on Thursday, along with another person.
His family reported that the former mayor was last seen in his office, with plans to travel across the border into Texas.
As Galván approached his car with a friend to go to the city of Laredo, Texas, both were intercepted by armed men forced out of their vehicle and into another.
The former mayor was threatened by a group working for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who accused Galván of protecting Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias "Z40".
In April 17, 2012, CDG Sinaloa gunmen executed 14 alleged members of "Los Zetas" who were abandoned in front of the mayor office at city hall of Nuevo Laredo.
The bodies were left in 10 black bags inside a van parked on the side of City Hall. In the vehicle they left a "narco manta" signed by "El Chapo" threatening the mayor and his police chief.
Subsequently, two car bombs were detonated, one outside the Nuevo Laredo Security Building and one near City Hall, sending a clear and threatening message to Mayor Benjamín Galván and Security Director Alejandro Garza Balmori.
In February 2013 Garza was kidnapped and vanished, just days after Garza’s two brothers, Manuel and Jose, Jose a PGR Prosecutor, were killed in the metropolitan area of Monterrey while on their way to investigate the kidnapping of yet another brother, taken at the Tamaulipas border.
The two brothers were found dead inside the trunk of their white Passat, abandoned on the side of Nuevo Laredo Highway in the town of Cienega de Flores, 40 kilometers north of Monterrey, Nuevo León.
In Spring of 2012, a violent conflict between CDG/Chapo and Los Zetas ensued resulting in gruesome mass hangings, mass dismemberments, narco messages and threats between the cartels. (warning link contains graphic photos of dismembered bodies)
sources: facebook, Borderland Beat archives, Proceso,LMT
Thank you to BB reader Tyrone! and others
Thank you to BB reader Tyrone! and others