Government Says Michoacán 20 were Drug Gang Members

(Acapulco, NA 27 October) “They were not tourists, but members of ‘La Familia Michoacana’ (‘the Michoacán Family’),” reported federal and state police sources yesterday, referring to the twenty men from Michoacán captured in Acapulco on September 30 by a rival drug group. Authorities disclosed that they arrived in Acapulco with the mission of “heating things up” with the murders of the mayors of Acapulco and San Marcos and by attacking local schools. The investigative police of the state attorney general (PGJE) are investigating four separate leads that seem to converge on that conclusion. Two of the 20 were gang leaders. The twenty traveled by separate routes to Acapulco and got together upon their arrival, according to federal police investigators. One group arrived at a “safe house” in Renacimiento, where arms were stored. Then they sought to register in a hotel in Costa Azul, but as it was not on the beach, they decided to look elsewhere.

Isidro Juárez Solis, known as “El Quirri” and a known local boss for the organized crime group “La Barbie,” was arrested a few days after the event, and revealed to authorities the intentions of the rival group from Michoacán. Relatives of the twenty kidnapped men rejected this version of events, stating that it was just a ploy to clean up the image of Acapulco at the cost of the reputation of the victims. One family member, Katiuska Rodrígues Ortiz, an attorney and the niece of five of the men, said that eye witnesses confirmed that the kidnapping was carried out by police in uniform. On Monday, a national newspaper published an account linking the twenty men who disappeared with “La Familia,” citing state and local police investigators as their source. “The idea that they all arrived separately is false, and this can be demonstrated because [the bus] passed through 4 different police inspection points on its way here,” she said.