Federal authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of former Guerrero Governor Ángel Heladio Aguirre Rivero in connection with the 2014 abduction and presumed murder of 43 teachers college students.
Aguirre, governor of Guerrero from 2011 until his resignation in October 2014, was detained in México state on charges of concealment and/or destruction of evidence related to the whereabouts of the students, according to the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
“Ángel Aguirre”:
Porque fue detenido por su presunta participación en el ocultamiento de evidencias de Ayotzinapa pic.twitter.com/00qyDYyn1J— ¿Por qué es Tendencia? (@porktendencia) August 6, 2026
The FGR said on social media on Thursday morning that “as part of a new investigative model,” it carried out a reexamination of the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero. The students — all young men — disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, on September 26, 2014, after the bus on which they were traveling to Mexico City was stopped by municipal and state police.
Police allegedly handed the students over to members of Guerreros Unidos, a crime gang.
The FGR said that “new acts of investigation” allowed it to “confirm the possible participation” of Aguirre, a Democratic Revolution Party governor, “in the concealment of evidence” related to the whereabouts of the students.
Consequently, a warrant for the arrest of the ex-governor was “requested, obtained and executed,” the FGR said on Thursday morning.
The FGR subsequently released a statement from Attorney General Ernestina Godoy, who said that the FGR has evidence that Aguirre ordered the concealment of video footage that showed the bus on which the students were traveling at the time it was stopped by police.
“On the night of September 26, 2014, the ‘Estrella de Oro’ bus number 1531, on which the group of teacher-training students was traveling, was captured on video by security cameras 12 and 15, located outside the State Palace of Justice in Iguala, at the time it was stopped by municipal and state police officers,” Godoy said.
“The first official statements claimed that the material in question did not exist due to alleged technical failures in the [security camera] system. However, subsequent investigations confirmed that this claim was false,” she said.
Godoy said that in January, a cooperating witness provided testimony that “confirmed the existence of the video recordings.” That witness, the attorney general said, identified the person who “removed” the recordings in order to “deliver them directly” to Aguirre.
Godoy said that the witness also provided information about threats they had received, which “explained their previous silence.”
The attorney general said that in May, “a second protected witness strengthened said testimony” by declaring that Aguirre “ordered, in a meeting with top officials from his government,” the concealment of “any evidence related to the events that occurred in the vicinity of the Iguala Palace of Justice.”
“The Attorney General’s Office has evidence that confirms that said instruction of concealment was issued directly by the then governor, with the participation of high-level state public servants,” Godoy said.
Near the start of her statement, the attorney general said that a reexamination of the Ayotzinapa case “confirmed with full evidence and adherence to due process the possible participation of Ángel ‘N,’ ex-governor of the state of Guerrero, in the destruction of evidence [needed] to determine the whereabouts of the students.”
Godoy said that Aguirre was arrested on Thursday in México state, but didn’t specify exactly where he was taken into custody. However, according to the National Arrests Register, the ex-governor was detained on Thursday morning in Tepotzotlán, a México state municipality north of Mexico City. He was subsequently transferred to the Altiplano federal prison in Almoloya de Juárez, México state.
The arrest of Aguirre is one of the most prominent detentions in connection with the Ayotzinapa case, which sparked outrage in Mexico and around the world, and triggered large protests in Mexico City and across the country.
In a 2023 report, the previous federal government led by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador outlined three “possible reasons” for the abduction of the students, one of which was “the possible presence of drugs, weapons or money” on buses Ayotzinapa students had commandeered to travel to a protest in Mexico City.
The disappearance of the 43 young men — a “crime of the state,” according to a top official in the previous federal government — was a major blight on the 2012-18 presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, but he survived widespread calls for his removal from office. The remains of just three students have been found.
Scores of people have been arrested in connection with the case, but no has been convicted of the crime and some suspects have been released from prison. Among those who have been detained are soldiers and high-ranking members of the Mexican Army, police officers, Guerreros Unidos members and Jesús Murillo Karam, federal attorney general at the time of the students’ disappearance.
Murillo was detained in 2022 on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in connection with the Aytozinapa case. He was released from prison in 2024 after a judge ruled he could await trial under house arrest. The 78-year-old former attorney general suffered a stroke in April.
With reports from La Jornada and AP
