Borderland Beat
This is a story from a month ago, I wasn´t able to post it back then but figured it would still be relevant giving all what is happening in Iguala and now in Guanajuato with the local police force.
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| "El Ramses", Armando Angulo and Cesar Garcia. Photo taken from AFNTijuana.info |
Last month, a cell of kidnappers allegedly working under Fernando Sanchez Arellano aka "El Ingeniero" were arrested in Tijuana, former PGJE employee Jose Daniel Canales Rodriguez aka "Ramses" or "Ram" was arrested on September 24th after a series of investigations by local authorities who were following a lead on a recent kidnapping.
Canales Rodriguez noticed there was a group of men following him and in fear drove straight to the PGJE offices, believing he was about to be executed by a rival group, Canales offered his full cooperation as a "protected witness" in exchange for protection, little did he know at the time those following him were in fact PGJE agents belonging to the Anti-Kidnapping unit.
"El Ramses" gave up information to the PGJE agents which led them to Cesar Garcia Chavez and Armando Angulo Jr. Garcia Chavez was identified by Municipal agents as a former bodyguard for Melvin Gutierrez Quiroz aka "El Melvin", the former leader of the Barrio Logan hitmen group under CAF.
Cesar Garcia Chavez is believed to be Cesar Ayala Torres, a long time member of the Barrio Logan gang previously jailed in San Diego back in 1994 and arrested in Tijuana in 2002 after a shootout with the Mexican Army.
Back in those days, the cell which Ayala Torres worked for used to move large quantities of Methamphetamine and used to provide their "services" as hitmen to both CAF and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Juan Jose Esparragoza aka "El Azul" from CDS, all this under the assistance and protection of Federal, State and Municipal police agents.
Old CAF members
12 years after the arrest of Ayala Torres in Tijuana, this cell operated in a similar fashion, it is believed they worked under direct orders from Fernando Sanchez Arellano until his capture a few months ago but now they answer to Jose Lorenzo Hernandez Garcia aka "El Viejon", Hernandez Garcia was identified by local police agents as one of those who in 2004 received official badges of the PGJE in exchange for 70 thousand USD.
"El Viejon" appears to be a long time CAF member and, according to PGJE he has under his supervision both "El Ramses" and a former Municipal agents known as "El Lic" or "El Licenciado". "El Ramses" also pointed out a guy only known by the nicknames "El Lopez", "El L" and/or "El Blue" who is believed to be a brother of Melvin Gutierrez Quiroz(some say he is his cousin rather than brother, it is unclear).
Modus Operandi
According to statements given by "El Ramses" the cell committed a kidnapping each week, when investigating this facts, PGJE found out 3 things about the target victims;
*They had relations with criminal activities
*Committed crimes themselves
*Or were related to current or previous criminals
With that in common, PGJE agents believe they were targetting former CAF members who either abandoned their activities or went independent.
Given that Jose Lorenzo Hernandez is a long time CAF member and being 50 years old, he must have known several of his victims. His cell acted on 3 different ways::
*His cell would receive a call from a member of another cell giving the order to take out someone who owe money, they would go ahead and kidnap them then ask their relatives for a ransom and kill them anyways.
*They would organize their own kidnappings against former CAF members, on their own.
*They would kidnap small business men who had some kind of relationship with members of their own crew.
POLICE COOPERATION
The band received help from police agents in 2 ways:
*Agents in civilian vehicles: They would intercept their victims in civilian vehicles fitted with strobe lights, then would then take them away and give them up to their criminal partners 2 or 3 streets ahead. According to statements, in most of the cases it was help provided by Federal and State agents, both victims and witnesses claimed they heard a "Defeño" accent(Mexico City accent) or "southern". Other victims openly claimed they were taken away in PGJE official vehicles.
*Municipal Agents: They patrol the area where the would be victim is located and inform the cell leaders of their location, then they would clear the area and either take a long time to respond to the emergency call or simply not arrive.
30% SHARE
In his legal statement, "El Ramses" claimed he received protection from Federal, State and Municipal police, he claimed they did so in exchange for 30% of the money his cell received as ransom for their victims.
According to "El Ramses", his band committed kidnappings obtaining ransoms ranging from 10 thousand USD to 3 million pesos, and at all times 30% went straight to the agents who helped him and his partners.
THE KIDNAPPING
The case which alerted state authorities and made the arrest of this cell possible took place on September 18th, the victim is a member of a family which owns fruit transport businesses and which had already been targeted in 2007 or 2008 when one of its members had already been kidnapped.
Employees of the victim called police immediately but the Municipal police had a rather slow response, the district supervisors were removed because of this, after all this, family members asked the agents to stay away since they were going to pay the ransom.
According to security video recordings, Municipal police agents have been patroling the area the day before, in fact, minutes prior to the kidnapping, a Municipal agent arrived at the business telling the employees he needed to access the area because "someone denounced you have a truck with drugs here", employees allowed him in and he saw the victim was there.
Moments later a group of white trucks with strobe lights(similar to PGJE police trucks) arrived at the business and took away the victim. An emergency call was made and since a reunion between State and Municipal authorities was taking place, both of them were informed.
According to a witness a group of police vehicles were called by radio but took a long time to arrive, every few minutes the directors would call the district´s commander where they were and she would reply "close" and give her location, but at the same time would call all units by radio ordering them to stay away until all of them could arrive at the same time.
When the agents arrived the family had already received a call asking for ransom, they asked the agents to leave and told them they would pay the ransom, the State investigators arrived late and only provide help with negotiating the ransom.
The district commander, along with a deputy and a supervisor were removed from their commanding position under orders of Alejandro Lares, Municipal Safety Director.
Even thou it was evident, no legal action was taken against them since there were not enough proofs of their involvement.
FEDERAL INVESTIGATION
According to sources, there is a Federal Investigation taking place in Mexico City right now trying to arrest those agents who cooperated or keep cooperating with CAF in Tijuana. "El Ramses" apparently has a list of names of said agents and it is believed the Federal Government will try to use it to make a massive arrest. (Tijuano´s note: Since this happened about a month ago I have my doubts any agents will be arrested since none has been even remove yet)
SOURCE: ZETA Tijuana