Ex-Coahuila finance minister to be tried for embezzling 475 million pesos

By

-

June 23, 2022

The corruption scheme allegedly happened during the administration of Coahuila Governor Rubén Moreira, between 2011 and 2017. Twitter

Seven years after investigators in Chihuahua uncovered an embezzlement scheme dubbed “Operation Sapphire,” a very similar situation has been illuminated in Coahuila with federal charges filed against the state’s former finance minister.

Ismael Eugenio Ramos Flores, who worked in the 2011-17 administration of Coahuila governor Rubén Moreira, has been accused by the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) of diverting approximately 475 million pesos (US $23.8 million), according to evidence presented this week before a federal judge.

The money allegedly was taken from the Fund for Financial Strengthening (Fortafin), a national program created by the government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, who served from 2012 to 2018. Mexico’s budget policy and finance departments could assign money from that fund to states on a discretionary, as-needed basis.

The charges against Ramos Flores said the 475 million pesos were diverted through 15 simulated contracts for the provision of services such as courses and consultancies. At the hearing, prosecutors from the government’s anti-corruption office presented evidence that the services were contracted irregularly.

The FGR presented evidence this week that they say shows Ramos Flores diverted nearly 500 million pesos through the Fortafin fund.

According to the news website Animal Politico, Ramos Flores signed four Fortafin agreements in 2015 for 477 million pesos; in 2016, he signed nine agreements for 1.4 billion pesos; and in 2017, he signed seven for 1.1 billion pesos. In total, that amounted to 2.9 billion pesos in Fortafin contracts for Coahuila.

(According to the Federal Auditor’s Office, Fortafin doled out 62.3 billion pesos in total; in 2017, auditors warned that the fund, which was created to replace the Economic Contingencies Program, lacked operating rules.)

Ramos Flores, who took office in February 2014, was accused by the FGR of embezzlement and the illicit use of funds and power under Moreira, who today is the national coordinator of deputies for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

In a courtroom hearing that reportedly started on Tuesday and ended at dawn on Wednesday, Ramos Flores had his passport withdrawn so he would not leave the country. He also was asked not to leave the city of Saltillo, where he lives.

The federal judge said there was sufficient evidence that the crimes were committed and that the accused was probably involved. The FGR will have three more months to investigate.

The FGR also is investigating two other former high-level officials in Coahuila’s Finance Ministry, Antonio Zerón Puga and Nazario Salvador Iga Torre, but they have not yet been charged. A fourth man’s name was cited in the paperwork, but he died in 2018.

An investigation launched by the Attorney General’s Office in Chihuahua in 2016 found that funding through the Fortafin program was used to illegally funnel millions of pesos into PRI election campaigns. That diversion scheme was dubbed “Operation Sapphire.”

The man who reportedly authorized those funds was Alonso Isaac Gamboa Lozano of Mexico’s Budget Policy and Control Unit (UPCP); he also allegedly authorized the 2.9 billion pesos in Fortafin funding to Coahuila that Ramos Flores managed. Gamboa Lozano was murdered, along with his mother and three brothers, in Morelos in 2020, in connection to the alleged “Black Widow” case, a complex web of ghost companies, corruption and money laundering during Peña Nieto’s term as president.

With reports from Vanguardia and Animal Político

Big hopes for continued growth in tourism in Ensenada, Baja California

By

Lydia Carey

-

June 23, 2022

0

Tour operators are optimistic about summer tourism in Ensenada.

Ensenada is looking forward to a big summer for tourism according to the head of the Baja California tour operators association (AatopBC). Gilberto Gamiño Herrera predicts this year’s tourism numbers are set to exceed those of pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

The state’s wine trail, beautiful beaches, nature adventures throughout the state, and gourmet dining draw tourists from across the country, but particularly northern Mexico and U.S. residents along the west coast. This summer, the added pull of several massive concerts and events will bring even more visitors, Herrera believes.

Among the upcoming events is the Baja Beach Fest, which will take place three weekends in August and bring big-name reggaeton stars Anuel, Yandel and Daddy Yankee to the peninsula, the Fiestas de la Vendimia in the Valle de Guadalupe celebrating the harvest season of the region’s vineyards and the Baja Blues Fest in Rosarito.

In response to problems recently experienced by ticket holders to receive reimbursement for a concert in Mexicali that was canceled at the last minute, Herrera insisted that the companies putting on this summer’s events are professionals.

“Of course we can’t help it if there is a last minute cancellation, but we can guarantee that ticket holders will be reimbursed. At AatopBC we don’t work with shady operations, these are serious businesses with roots in Baja California.”

Baja California has long been one of Mexico’s most popular tourism destinations and this year, Herrera says, many tour companies are already having to turn customers away because they are sold out for June and July. He has high hopes for beach travel and travel to the state’s wine region in the Valle de Guadalupe, but added that COVID protocols will still be in place to protect both tourists and tour operators.

“It’s very important due to the rise in COVID cases that we continue to apply hygiene protocols, the same as is being done in restaurants, hotels, and vineyards. We will continue to take care of each other.”

With reports from El Imparcial

4 police officers among 12 people killed in Jalisco confrontation

By

Lydia Carey

-

June 23, 2022

0

Security forces at the scene of the shooting in El Salto.

Four police officers were killed Wednesday night in a confrontation with armed subjects in the city of El Salto, Jalisco.

Local police responded to a 911 call late Wednesday night reporting that two individuals, bound and blindfolded, had been led from a van into a house by a group of armed assailants. As the police arrived on the scene they were met with a hail of bullets from inside the house and fired back on the aggressors, killing eight and wounding three. Four police officers were also killed on the scene during the exchange of bullets.

The three wounded assailants have been taken into police custody as well as the two kidnapping victims, who are receiving necessary medical attention. Also reported was a patrol car crashing into a tree nearby, believed to be part of the Zapotlanejo police force who were headed to the scene to help fellow police officers.

Despite state officials reporting a more than 50% decrease in crime in the first part of 2022 in comparison to the same period last year, Jalisco is still consistently listed as one of Mexico’s most violent and dangerous states, reporting over 2,700 homicides last year alone.

In response to the incident, Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez wrote on Twitter: “During this current moment in Mexico, we in Jalisco are clear that there cannot be a truce with those that would threaten our peace and calm. We will continue working.” He also expressed condolences to the families of the fallen officers and pledged to help them in any way possible.

With reports from El Occidental and Milenio

Source of Mexico City water leak eludes detection after 7 days of searching

By

MND Staff

-

June 23, 2022

0

City workers have been searching for the leak for a week. — City workers have been searching for the source of the leak for a week. Twitter @giogutierrezag

Crews continued working Thursday in a dogged attempt to discover the source of a massive water leak that has flooded one home in Mexico City and severely impacted two neighboring houses.

The search to find the leak has continued in vain for seven days, and approximately 30 families on the block have been affected. All the while, an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 liters of tap water are leaking per day.

“It’s enough that Aztec Stadium could be filled,” one resident said of the flooding.

The affected area, which happens to be right near the sprawling, 87,500-seat stadium, is in the Pedregal de Santa Úrsula neighborhood of Mexico City’s Coyoacán borough, an area known for its tree-lined, cobblestone streets, colonial architecture, sidewalk cafes and the bright blue Frida Kahlo Museum.

City workers inspect a flooded building in the Santa Úrsula neighborhood. Twitter @Alcaldia_Coy

In trying to find the leak, Mexico City’s water department Sacmex and other authorities have sent video inspection cameras into pipes, used geophones that can detect leaks by sound waves and tried other various instruments.

“This problem is not that easy to solve,” said Giovani Gutiérrez, the borough mayor. “This is a problem that needs instrumentation and so on. It’s not a common leak.”

The house that is being most impacted is a three-story structure in which water has covered more than 250 cubic meters in the lower part of the house. That family is using two pumps — one submersible electric pump and one that runs on gasoline — in an attempt to drain the stagnating water.

“This has been every day for three months,” said resident Francisco Ortiz, who woke up Wednesday morning to 40 centimeters of flooding. In an attempt to mitigate the damage, crews of no fewer than 20 workers have dug 10 holes in a 700-meter radius around his home.

Este día con un monitor y una camara de empujé continúan los trabajos de @SacmexCDMX @AlcaldiaCoy para encontrar la fuga de agua en el Pedregal de Santa Ursula @giogutierrezag @heraldodemexico pic.twitter.com/pyZg4dTnkL

— @mmiranda (@magomiranda) June 22, 2022

A reporter shared video of city workers using pipe inspection cameras to look for the leak.

Sandra Martínez, a resident of the area, explained that the neighborhood was built on rocky outcrops, where there were many springs. “Some of those springs may be emerging now,” she said. However, the water was tested by colorimetry and was determined to be tap water rather than from an aquifer.

The problem was first pointed out to Sacmex in March, but after a few visits that included a hydraulic operation, the situation apparently was forgotten.

“They made an appearance,” Ortiz said. “And when they saw the size of the problem, they began to mobilize. But from then on, absolutely nothing happened” until the past week.

The leak has resulted in a problem of a scarcity of tap water in the neighborhood, which has worsened since the leak was first reported.

“It is a paradox that the water from the leak going down the drain, when we have to go buy bottles,” said one person who lives on the affected block defined by San León and San Celso streets.

With reports from Reforma and Excélsior

New refinery could cost more than twice the original estimate

By

MND Staff

-

June 23, 2022

0

President López Obrador at the site of the new refinery.

The cost of the state oil company’s new refinery on the Tabasco coast could blow out to more than double its original estimated price tag, according to a report by the news agency Bloomberg.

The Dos Bocas refinery, which will be officially opened July 2, could cost as much as US $18 billion, according to Bloomberg sources, a price tag that would be $10 billion higher than the project’s initial budget.

Citing people with knowledge of the matter who weren’t identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the refinery, Bloomberg reported that the value of Energy Ministry (SENER) contracts for work through to 2024 increased to over $14 billion in May. The sources said that the final cost of the project will probably be between $16 billion and $18 billion.

Pemex – the world’s most indebted oil company – and SENER were given responsibility for the project after the government concluded in 2019 that the bids it received from private companies were too high. President López Obrador said at the time that estimates ranged between $10 billion and $12 billion and none of the companies would commit to completing the project within three years.

Federal authorities didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment on the estimated $16-18 billion cost.

The news agency said that after a period of underspending due to the coronavirus pandemic, refinery construction costs increased significantly as new contracts were issued in order to have the project ready for inauguration. One source said the total number of contracts accounted for by Pemex has increased to about 270 from approximately 100.

Bloomberg said that cost overruns on the refinery project were likely to continue due to inflation, which was 7.88% in Mexico in the first half of June. The cost blowout undermines López Obrador’s austerity drive and “casts doubt on whether Pemex can fulfill its goal of producing all of its own gasoline, given how crucial the refinery is to the oil company’s efforts to end dependence on fuel imports,” the news agency said.

The president, a staunch energy nationalist, has set a goal of making Mexico self-sufficient for fuel by 2023. To achieve that, the federal government is upgrading Pemex’s existing refineries in addition to building the new one on the Tabasco Gulf coast, which will have the capacity to process 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and thus add about 20% to Pemex’s existing capacity. It also bought Shell’s 50% share in a Texas refinery that was jointly owned with Pemex.

The inauguration of the Dos Bocas project, which is officially called the Olmeca Refinery (the Olmec people lived in the Gulf coast area), will be attended by Pemex CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza, Energy Minister Rocío Nahle and López Obrador, a Tabasco native who is determined to reinvigorate the economy of Mexico’s southeast with large-scale infrastructure projects.

The inauguration won’t herald the commencement of full production as Pemex is not expected to reach its projected 340,000 bpd refining capacity for at least six months.

Writing in The Washington Post earlier this week, journalist Carlos Loret de Mola – a prominent critic of the president and federal government – charged that López Obrador will formally open a refinery “that doesn’t refine anything.”

“Not a single barrel of oil will enter and not a single liter of gasoline will come out of the Olmeca refinery,” he wrote.

“… The inauguration will be a simulation, a stunt motivated by AMLO’s ego,” Loret de Mola added, noting that the opening will come four years after López Obrador won the 2018 presidential election. “… On July 2, in reality only a ‘test phase’ will be inaugurated,” he said.

With reports from Bloomberg

Dispute over baseball game triggered murder of Jesuit priests

By

MND Staff

-

June 23, 2022

0

Slain Chihuahua priest Javier Campos Morales of Chihuahua — Slain Chihuahua priests Javier Campos Morales, seen here, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar dedicated their lives to serving the Tarahumara community.

Two elderly priests were murdered in Chihuahua Monday at the tail end of a one-man rampage precipitated by an argument after a baseball game, the state attorney general said Wednesday.

Roberto Javier Fierro Duarte told a press conference that José Noriel “El Chueco” Portillo Gil, a 30-year-old presumed member of a crime gang affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel, arrived at an address in the town of Cerocahui on Monday to look for a man identified as Paul Berrelleza Rábago (Paul B.).

The day before, the attorney general continued, a baseball team sponsored by El Chueco lost a match and was subsequently involved in an argument with the opposing team, which included Paul B. and his brother Armando Berrelleza Rábago (Armando B.).

“According to versions from several witnesses, El Chueco detonated a firearm against Paul B., abducted Armando B. and subsequently set the [men’s] home on fire,” Fierro said, referring to events on Monday.

Paul Osbaldo Berrelleza and Armando Berrelleza — Paul Osbaldo Berrelleza Rabago, left, and Armando Berrelleza Rabago, right, were on the baseball team that allegedly engaged in a dispute with El Chueco’s team.

Paul B. survived the attack and was also kidnapped. Neither he nor his brother have been located.

The attorney general said that hours after the attack and abduction, El Chueco went to a Cerocahui hotel where, according to witnesses, he spoke with and then abducted Pedro Palma, a tourist guide.

According to Fierro, Palma – who was apparently badly beaten by El Chueco – managed to escape and took refuge in a Cerocahui church, where he received assistance from the priests Joaquín César Mora Salazar and Javier Campos Morales.

Portillo is believed to have subsequently arrived at the church and killed Palma as well as Mora and Campos, both of whom were ordained in the early 1970s and had served communities in the Tarahumara region for decades.

Pedro Palma, victim of narco murder in Chihuahua — Pedro Palma, a tour guide in the area, was kidnapped after El Chueco spoke to him at a hotel. Ricardo Palma/Twitter

Fierro said that the victims were all shot and their bodies were removed from the church. El Chueco received help from his criminal associates to load the bodies into a pickup truck, according to another priest who was at the church but not targeted in the attack.

Fierro said that his office, via interviews, had established that El Chueco was responsible for the murders. As a result, the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office is offering a 5-million-peso (US $250,000) reward for information leading to the capture of Portillo, who is also accused of murdering United States citizen Patrick Braxton-Andrew in 2018.

The attorney general noted that the bodies of all three victims had been found in Pito Real, a locality about 80 kilometers from Cerocahui, which is in the Sierra Tarahumara municipality of Urique.

Governor Maru Campos announced the discovery of the men’s bodies in a video message posted to social media on Wednesday. “Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the state Attorney General’s Office … we’ve managed to locate and recover … the bodies of the Jesuit priests Javier Campos and Joaquín Mora and the tourist guide Pedro Palma,” she said.

Chihuahua State Attorney General Roberto Javier Fierro Duarte — Roberto Javier Fierro Duarte briefs reporters on the search for the alleged killer of all three men, Jose Noriel “El Chueco” Portillo.

The governor said that forensic experts had confirmed that the bodies belonged to the men killed in the Cerocahui church on Monday.

The murder of the priests led former president Felipe Calderón to ask whether Mexico had plunged to the ultimate depths of depravity. “Have we reached the bottom now?” the 2006-2012 National Action Party president pondered on Twitter before launching an attack on President López Obrador.

“Will this unprecedented event be forgotten in the coming days? Will the indifference of authorities or AMLO’s comical and sardonic smile prevail [even] when massacres occur?”

In a reference to the federal government’s non-confrontational “hugs, not bullets” security approach, Calderón – who as president launched a war on drug cartels that led to a sharp increase in homicides – wrote in another tweet that not confronting organized crime “implies leaving communities abandoned to their own devices, in the hands of criminals without the force of the state to protect them.”

Father Joaquin Cesar Mora Salazar of Chihuahua — Father Joaquín César Mora Salazar was known affectionately in his community as “Morita.” Social media

“In this context, the murder of the Jesuits occurred. He who commits a crime knows that a hug awaits him, not punishment,” he wrote.

López Obrador hit back at the ex-president – whose security minister Genaro García Luna is accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel – at his regular news conference on Wednesday, accusing him of hypocrisy. “Even Felipe Calderón dares to blame us. It’s the height of cynicism and hypocrisy,” he said.

The president asserted that crime in the Sierra Tarahumara – where opium poppies and marijuana are grown – has been a problem for years. “Or did … [El Chueco] just begin his criminal career? No – and he was probably tolerated [by previous governments],” López Obrador said.

“The Jesuits know that well, and those who live in Urique, Chínipas, Creel and Batopilas know that well. They know how this whole [criminal] organization was created and the collusion [there was] with authorities,” he said.

With reports from Milenio, Reforma and El Universal

Mexico a failed state where law of the jungle prevails: Jesuit universities

By

MND Staff

-

June 23, 2022

0

Two days after two elderly Jesuit priests were murdered in Chihuahua, heads of Jesuit universities slammed past and present governments for failing to combat violence in Mexico and called on citizens to pressure authorities to act.

Speaking during a panel discussion on “justice with peace and reconciliation” at the Jesuit university system’s annual meeting in León, Guanajuato, on Wednesday, one university rector described Mexico as a failed state where the law of the jungle prevails.

“When the state doesn’t have control of territory and allows private armed groups to control it, we call that a failed state,” said Juan Luis Hernández Avendaño, rector of the Ibero-American University in Torreón, Coahuila.

Due to the absence of the state, many neighborhoods and towns across Mexico have been controlled by big and small criminal groups for years, he said.

“In many parts of Mexico, [authorities] left a long time ago, so the people are alone, abandoned, subjected to the law of the strongest, subjected to the law of the jungle, the law of kidnapping, extortion and murder because federal and local governments aren’t interested in protecting us,” Hernández said.

The removal of the bodies of the two slain priests from the church where they were killed is a sign that “narcos can do whatever they want,” he added. “They feel they are the owners [of Mexico], and we can’t continue allowing that.”

Mario Patrón, rector of the Ibero-American University in Puebla, charged that eight of nine violence-prevention and peace-building measures included in a national peace plan presented by Andrés Manuel López Obrador when he was president-elect have not been fully implemented.

“Eight measures were watered down, and only the National Guard was left,” he said. “A militarized police force … [is] the only measure to pacify the country. Today, we have to say that strategy failed.”

Alexander Paul Zatyrka Pacheco, rector of the Jesuit University of Guadalajara (ITESO), accused governments at different levels of blaming each other for the high levels of violence that continue to plague Mexico while failing to address the problem. “It’s clear that these political collectives won’t act if there isn’t pressure from civil society,” he said.

The director of México state’s Chalco Valley Technological University took aim at the federal government’s so-called abrazos, no balazos (hugs, not bullets) security approach, a non-confrontational strategy that purports to address the root causes of violence through the delivery of social programs. The government is trying to achieve peace simply by transferring money to people, Óscar Castro said. But those transfers are no match for the pressure criminal groups exert on people who live in the areas they control, he said.

Cartels can lure young people with salaries that far exceed payments the government makes to students with scholarships or participants in social programs such as the Youth Building the Future apprenticeship scheme.

All of the university leaders who participated in the panel discussion lamented the deaths of Joaquín César Mora Salazar and Javier Campos Morales, veteran priests who were gunned down in a church in the Tarahumara region of Chihuahua on Monday. A tourist guide was also killed in the attack, which was allegedly perpetrated by a drug gang member known as El Chueco (The Crooked One).

Luis Alfonso González, rector of the Ibero-American University in León, said the murders occurred within a “framework of exacerbated violence that harms … our society daily and reveals the ineffectiveness of the state security policy at all levels.”

With reports from El Universal and Reforma

Citizens go searching for water in Nuevo León

By

MND Staff

-

June 22, 2022

0

dry water faucet — Mexico has been facing increasingly severe drought conditions for a number of years. (Shutterstock)

Some Monterrey residents are undertaking “pilgrimages” in search of water due to the harsh restrictions currently in place in the metropolitan area of the Nuevo León capital.

As of early June, running water has only been available six hours per day – if at all – as authorities seek to alleviate water shortages precipitated by drought in the northern border state.

A Milenio TV report said that hundreds of residents of Monterrey and surrounding municipalities are going to parks and squares to search for taps with running water where they can fill up buckets, 20-liter water bottles called garrafones and other receptacles. Others line up for hours to get water from water tank trucks called pipas.

Milenio TV footage showed some residents fighting and squabbling over limited quantities of available water.

In the municipality of Guadalupe, which borders Monterrey to the east, one woman lining up Tuesday to get water from a pipa said that she hadn’t had any water since Saturday. “We’ve been here since early [in the day],” Juany Vega said.

Some other Guadalupe residents walked up to three kilometers to get water from the same tanker truck, according to a Milenio newspaper report. They arrived with strollers, shopping carts and even wheelbarrows so they wouldn’t have to lug filled water containers home.

“I’ve come with a stroller, I walked two kilometers,”said Luis Santiago. “… There’s no water in other places.”

Restaurants in the Monterrey metropolitan area and other parts of Nuevo León are also struggling to cope with harsh water restrictions.

“Of the 20,000 restaurants in the entity, only 30% can store water in cisterns or tanks during the … hours when water is supplied,” said the Nuevo León president of the national restaurant association Canirac.

“[The other] 70% have been affected [by the restrictions] and 10% of those have closed because they can’t continue operating without supply of the liquid,” Daniel García Rosales said.

With reports from Milenio

Power outage affects 1.3 million in 3 states

By

Lydia Carey

-

June 22, 2022

0

Mexican electricity workers. — The power outage occurred early Wednesday morning, just as citizens were heading out to school and work. File photo

With temperatures in the 30s across the region Wednesday, many Yucatán Peninsula residents had a tough morning after the power went out at approximately 8:32 a.m.

The outage affected 1.3 million residents living in the three states that comprise the peninsula: Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche.

As people were on their way to work and school, complaints started rolling in on social media with posts about the loss of cell phone and internet service as well as electricity for homes and air conditioning.

The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) said in response that early this morning six high-tension electricity lines went down because of an accident during routine maintenance that sent one injured worker to the local hospital. He was reported in stable condition.

According to CFE’s calculations, 62% of the region’s households were affected by the outage, including 700,000 residents of Yucatán’s capital city Mérida. Mérida Mayor Renán Barrera Concha reported to the newspaper Milenio that around 30% of the city’s power had been restored by mid-morning.

“We have been working in constant coordination with CFE to monitor the reestablishment of power,” Barrera said. “We believe that in a few more hours, we will be much closer to normal power levels again.”

CFE representative Laura Estrada Loría warned residents this morning that the process would take time. “Workers are currently trying to identify the causes [for the outage] for the quick re-establishment of service. Service will come back online gradually and CFE will work to uncover the causes of the outage in order to inform the public.”

However, according to the CFE, by 11:45 a.m. 100% of the region’s electricity service was back online.

With reports from Milenio

Outrage in Chihuahua after murder of Jesuit priests by suspected gangsters

By

MND Staff

-

June 22, 2022

0

Jesuit priests Joaquín Mora, left, and Javier Campos were killed in Chihuahua last month. Social media

Two elderly Jesuit priests were killed in a church in southwestern Chihuahua Monday, a crime that the state governor said “shook us to the very core.”

Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, and Javier Campos Morales, 79, were shot dead in a church in Cerocahui, a town in the Sierra Tarahumara municipality of Urique, part of a region where opium poppies and marijuana are grown. The life of a third priest at the church was inexplicably spared.

The victims were killed apparently after a man attempting to escape a drug gang took shelter in the church. The gang caught up with the man and killed him and Mora and Campos, both of whom were ordained in the early 1970s and had served communities in the Tarahumara region for decades.

José Noriel Portillo Gil, a presumed member of Los Salazar gang – an affiliate of the Sinaloa Cartel – has been identified as the person responsible for the murders. Portillo, known as “El Chueco,” is also accused of the 2018 murder of United States citizen Patrick Braxton-Andrew.

Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos said the killings “shook us to the core” and promised that security forces were on the way to make the region safer.

Javier Ávila, another Jesuit priest who has worked in the Tarahumara region since the ’70s, said that one of the slain priests knew Portillo and approached him to try to calm him down after his colleague was killed. “He killed him too,” Ávila said in a radio interview.

The priest said he had heard that the aggressor was drunk and drugged when he committed the crime. The third priest in the church apparently asked Portillo to leave the bodies of Mora and Campos, but he ignored the request and loaded them into a pickup truck with the help of other presumed members of Los Salazar.

The Mexico branch of the Society of Jesus acknowledged that the bodies of the two priests were removed from the church by armed men. “We demand justice and the recovery of the bodies of our brothers,” Jesuitas México (JM) said in a statement.

warrant for Mexican gang leader Jose Portillo, — Federal authorities said the killer was José Portillo — an alleged member of the Los Salazar gang known as “El Chueco.” Portillo has an outstanding warrant for the 2018 killing of U.S. citizen Patrick Braxton-Andrew.

“… Events like this are not isolated. The Tarahumara Sierra, like many other regions of the country, faces conditions of violence. … The lives of men and women are arbitrarily taken away every day like our brothers were murdered today,” JM said.

Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos said Tuesday that the investigation into the murders was advancing and pledged to hold those responsible to account. The murders of the priests caused “deep anger, indignation and pain” and “shook us to the very core,” she said

Security forces have been deployed to the region to protect citizens from violence, the National Action Party governor told a press conference.

“We’re not going to allow acts like this,” Campos declared. “To the Jesuits and all Chihuahua residents I say: you have the state government and the federal government [to protect you]. You have the force of the state that will protect you against those who disrupt our peace and take away the most precious thing we have, which is life.”

Mass in Monterrey, Mexico for slain priests — Father Óscar Lomelín called the two slain men martyrs at a Mass on Tuesday in Monterrey, Nuevo León. The victims were both natives of the city.

Both slain priests grew up in Monterrey, Nuevo León, where a Mass was held in their honor Tuesday. “We ask for the violence and impunity in our country, the indifference of authorities and even our own indifference, to stop,” said Óscar Lomelín, the priest who offered the Mass. He described the two priests as martyrs who died while carrying out their religious duties.

President López Obrador on Tuesday pledged that a thorough investigation into the murders will be carried out and noted that the region where they occurred has “a significant organized crime presence.”

Seven priests, including the two most recent victims, have been murdered since López Obrador took office in December 2018, according to Mexico’s Roman Catholic Multimedia Center. At least two dozen were killed during the 2012–18 term of the government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Adrian LeBaron, an anti-violence activist who lost nine members of his extended family in an armed attack near the Sonora-Chihuahua border in November 2019, also said that the Sierra Tarahumara is overtaken by organized crime.

“The Jesuits are almost the only people who dare to enter the sierra [region] because they’re brave, dedicated people,” he said in an interview.

With reports from Milenio, Reforma, El Norte and AP