An investigation into a squad of 10 Mexican police officers behind a cartel kidnapping in the border state of Nuevo Leon helped uncover the extensive criminal background of one who acted as the link between cartels and cops.
This week, detectives with the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency raided the police station in San Pedro to arrest seven officers on kidnapping charges. San Pedro is a wealthy suburb of the Monterrey metropolitan area. On Wednesday, state investigators arrested three more San Pedro officers on the same charges. The officers are accused of kidnapping a U.S. citizen who reported a break-in at his house, however, instead of helping, they turned him over to an independent criminal organization known as “The Office” (La Oficina). That organization was at one time part of the Beltran Leyva Cartel but broke away with Jose Rodolfo “El Gato” Villarreal Hernandez, a man listed as one of the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives.
One of the 10 officers, Oscar Eduardo Medellín López, was on the radar of law enforcement agencies at the state and federal levels for his connections to different cartels, U.S. law enforcement sources working in Mexico revealed to Breitbart Texas.
Medellin was the bodyguard of Antonio Lucas Martínez, the former public security secretary of San Pedro and most recently Montemorelos. Breitbart Texas recently exposed Lucas Martinez and the Mayor of Montemorelos Luis Fernando “El Dragón” Garza Guerrero for helping the Sinaloa Cartel get a foothold into Nuevo Leon by establishing heavily armed strike teams.
Information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. law enforcement sources revealed that since then, the Sinaloa Cartel has expanded its presence in Nuevo Leon and has been using San Pedro as part of its operation to establish stash houses and carry out deals. It remains unclear if the Sinaloa Cartel is paying El Gato’s organization to avoid conflict or if they established a formal alliance.
Additional information revealed that in 2019, authorities arrested Medellin with $800,000 pesos ($40,000) and a list of police officers working with cartels. The officer also had a list of the street-level drug distribution stores in Montemorelos. The case against Medellin at the time was initially described as being under investigation by Nuevo Leon’s State Public Security Secretary Aldo Fasci, but under his watch, the case went cold. Several cases dealing with police corruption have been shelved by Fasci, particularly those dealing with El Gato’s criminal organization.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
Gerald “Tony” Aranda is an international journalist with more than 20 years of experience working in high-risk areas for print and broadcast news outlets investigating organized crime, corruption, and drug trafficking in the U.S. and Mexico. In 2016, Gerald took up the pseudonym of “Tony” when he joined Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project. Since then, he has come out of the shadows and become a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.