The mayor of the Little Mexican city was accused of joining one of the most violent drug cartels in the country for the operation of the recruitment and training center, which was uncovered in March.
Main, José Asunción Murguía Santiago was charged with crime offe The prosecutors stated at the meeting on Friday.
The place of the center, in the western state of Jalisco, gained acquaintance after volunteer search engines notified The discovery of hundreds of shoes accumulates, piles of clothing, and what seemed to be the human bone fragments found in an abandoned ranch surrounded by a field of sugar cane In Teuchitlan, the city in front of Guadalajara, and sends shock waves across the nation. The seekers claimed that the ranch was a place of human creaks, but the authorities have since stated that there is no evidence.
The accusation against Mr Murguía Santiago served as a stabbing reminder of the long agreement of Mexican officials with organized crime, at a time when President Trump Trump suggested to use US units to proceed against cartels. The Mexican president refused.
ALEJANDRO GERTZ General said last week Until recently, the ranch in Teuchitlan was used by a new generation of Jalisco for training and recruitment. Mexican officials said the cartel lured new recruits with fake job offers for the ranch.
But when leaving previous comments, Mr. Gertz insisted that there was no evidence of the cremations that would be made there and stated that the site was a “extermination camp”, unfounded. Volunteer groups have controversial Federal findings, which insist that 17 batches of burnt human remains were obtained from the ranch, including teeth and bone fragments.
Mr. Gertz said that his office did not know how many people could disappear on the ranch, and that investigators would “go after those who covered or participated” by the cartel operations.
The case brought renewed attention More than 127,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico since the 1960s. She also became a thorn on the side of President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, which is under pressure to solve the country’s disappearance crisis once and for all. According to government data, nearly 8,700 people have disappeared since it took office in October.
While Mrs. Sheinbaum has committed themselves to use their forces to face the cartels – and since Mr. Trump has reached power, this effort has intensified – the connection between the Mexican authorities and drug groups remains a problem.
So far, more than a dozen suspects have been arrested in connection with the case. Include four former police officers and police chief as well as cartel Identified as José Gregorio Lastra, which the authorities claim to be supervised by training.
According to Mr. Lastro’s testimony, revealed Part of Mexican officials, his group would kill, beat and torture people who resisted training or tried to escape from the ranch.
Mr. Murguía Santiago, now in his third term, is the first government official to detain. His arrests on May 3, say experts, signal a closely conflicting relationship that organized crime has established with local authorities in some parts of Mexico, either through cooperation or coercion.
“Either you are trying to stop the territorial procedure of organized crime and pay expensive,” said David Mora, head analyst for the international crisis group, an organization that monitors and seeks to alleviate armed conflicts, “or you bend and cooperate.”
Details of the case against the mayor were published on Friday during hearing.
According to prosecutors, he reportedly visited the ranch several times in 2024. The prosecutors also accuse Mr. Murguí Santiago of the fact that he is on the payroll of the cartel. They say in exchange that the mayor allowed them to run the training center and offered supervision through the city police to make sure the recruits would not escape.
“How is it possible that the person to take care of us is part of this criminal organization?” said Victor Manuel Guajardo, one of the federal prosecutors who supervised the case during Friday’s hearing. “Allowed this criminal group to develop and grow.”
Mr Murguía Santiago has so far refused to testify. During the hearing, his defensive team brought a witness, his secretary who said that the mayor could not visit the ranch in the months when he was accused of being there because he was “most of the time” with him – although she had ever lost her overview in the afternoon, she said.
In March, Mr. Murguía Santiago told reporters that he did not know what was happening on the ranch.
“I’m not afraid,” he said In a television interview. “We are not involved in anything. What I have always tried as a mayor is to help people.”
Trump’s administration has been in place in January defendant Mexican government that has been dominated by cartels, design That the American forces are needed to face our huge drug formation and the smuggling of the empire. That has led to Tension matches With the Mexican government, which insists that the unilateral attack of the Pentagon against cartels would be a violation of Mexican sovereignty and decades to return bilateral relations.
Carolina Solís He contributed news from Salo Salto, Jalisco.
