A jailbreak by gangsters in Celaya, Guanajuato, left four people dead yesterday.

State officials reported that a group of uniformed men who identified themselves as judicial police entered a police station in the north of the city and proceeded to the cells.

There they freed a man police identified as Armando, apparently from a community that neighbors Santa Rosa de Lima, believed to be the base of a fuel theft cartel of the same name.

As the gangsters made their escape they shot and killed another prisoner and wounded a judge. He was rushed to a local hospital but later died.

Local, state and military police pursued the fleeing gang and a confrontation followed near the community of La Esperanza. Two members of the criminal band lost their lives in the gunfight, including the man who had been freed from jail, who was later identified as the band’s leader, Armando Soto González.

He had been arrested earlier yesterday while in possession of drugs.

Police detained one man before the rest of the gang fled the scene. Authorities seized three vehicles and three automatic rifles.

Around the same time police received reports of vehicles blocking the Celaya-Salvatierra highway. One had been set on fire and the other had been fired on with high-caliber weapons.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)