A deputy minister in the Guerrero state government was murdered on Tuesday while traveling on a highway near Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Hossein Nabor Guillén, deputy welfare minister for social policy in the government of Governor Evelyn Salgado, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen while driving on the Chilpancingo-Tlapa highway in the municipality of Tixtla.
The Guerrero Attorney General’s Office said on social media that it is investigating the crime, but didn’t provide additional details. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
The murder reportedly occurred at around 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday near a car dealership and pozole restaurant in the town of Tixtla, located around 17 kilometers east of Chilpancingo.
Nabor, mayor of Tixtla between 2015 and 2018, began his tenure as deputy welfare minister when Salgado took office in late 2021. He left the position last year to contest the state election as a candidate for deputy for the Morena party, but returned to the job in February.
Salgado conveyed her condolences to Nabor’s family in a social media post.
“His passing leaves a great void in our hearts,” she wrote. “Hossein was a man committed to the causes of the people, generous, supportive, and always willing to serve others. His memory will live on forever among those of us who had the privilege of walking by his side. Rest in peace,”
Nabor was reportedly close to Salgado’s father, federal Senator Félix Salgado, who backed the now-deceased official’s candidacy in the 2024 state election in Guerrero. The deputy welfare minister was aiming to represent Tixtla in the state Congress, but lost the election on June 2, 2024.
A controversial photo
Nabor’s main rival for the Tixtla deputy position was Jorge Iván Ortega, now a state lawmaker who represents the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). Nabor was a member of the PRD before switching his allegiance to Morena, the party founded by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Ortega is the nephew of Celso Ortega, identified as the leader of the criminal group Los Ardillos, which “dominates criminal action in the central region of Guerrero,” according to the Reforma newspaper.
In May 2024, during the campaign period leading up to the election, a photo emerged of Nabor and Celso Ortega sharing a hug in a Chilpancingo restaurant. Former Chilpancingo mayor Norma Otilia Hernández Martínez was expelled from the Morena party after it came to light that she had met with Celso Ortega, but Nabor didn’t suffer the same fate.
According to the newspaper La Jornada, Nabor was accused of allowing Los Ardillos to operate in and around Tixtla when he was mayor of the municipality.
Guerrero is one of Mexico’s most violent states, recording 870 homicides in the first seven months of 2025, according to data presented by the federal government last month.
Since Salgado became governor in October 2021, four mayors, one mayor-elect and seven former mayors have been murdered in Guerrero, the El Universal newspaper reported.
Among those killed was Alejandro Arcos Catalán, who was murdered last October just six days after he took office as the mayor of Chilpancingo.
With reports from Reforma, El Universal, El Financiero and La Jornada
