Two cartel gunmen were killed in Cancún after they attacked a state police convoy transporting prisoners from a prison to a hospital. The police were able to repel the attack, which was eventually believed to be an assassination attempt against a jailed cartel leader requiring medical care for a gunshot wound.
The incident occurred this past Wednesday at approximately 1 pm as the convoy was leaving the Centro de Reinserción Social de Cancún in the Supermanzana 99 section, when at least three vehicles carrying cartel gunmen opened fire on the convoy, according to local reports. The state police returned fire, killing two in a green Ford Explorer. A second vehicle, a white Renault van, was abandoned at the scene with at least one rifle, extra magazines, and radio inside, according to local law enforcement sources. A third vehicle was recovered a short distance away with a Quintana Roo State Police license plate affixed. The two dead gunmen were reportedly in possession of two pistols, a rifle, and what is believed to be fraudulent state police identification, according to Breitbart law enforcement sources.
Initial reports indicated the attack was an attempt to free Raúl Muñoz Aguirre aka “Sinclair,” the alleged leader of a Gulf Cartel cell known as “Los Pelones.” Later reports stated the attack was an actual assassination attempt on Sinclair. In May 2019, Breitbart News reported on the attempted kidnapping of Sinclair by rival hitmen dressed in cloned police uniforms. The episode left one hitman dead and Sinclair wounded. The cell leader was subsequently arrested and detained in a state prison until his trip to the hospital.
The attack on the police convoy was later confirmed on social media by Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra, the Secretario de Seguridad Pública (Chief of Police) for the State of Quintana Roo.
HUBO UN SOLO enfrentamiento al exterior de la penitenciaria, en dos hechos posteriores son encontrados dos vehículos más que presuntamente participaron en el único ataque. Dos presuntos sicarios abatidos. No hay ningún otro enfrentamiento en alguna otra zona. pic.twitter.com/Tt9SZNziul
— Alberto Capella (@kpya) June 12, 2019
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com.
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