State and federal police with support by the Mexican Army disarmed local authorities in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, after a probe into official kidnapping and murder commenced.
Federal officials relieved the entire 110-man municipal force and assumed control of all duties in the southern Mexico state ravaged by non-stop cartel violence.
The bodies of the two victims, identified as Jorge Antonio Vasquez Campos and Marco Antonio Catalan Cabrera, were found inside black plastic bags in a trash pile on January 4, according to a press conference by state Attorney General Xavier Olea Peláez. The victims were arrested on December 31 after a fight at a New Year’s Eve celebration. Olea Peláez said municipal police are suspected in the disappearance and murders of the two victims, according to Frontera.
At least one municipal police officer was ordered detained for directly participating in the disappearance and murder of Campos Vázquez and Catalán Cabrera, Olea Peláez said. The officer reportedly transported both victims to the jail in a patrol car on December 31, reports Proceso. The state prosecutor notes the two victims were released after posting cash bonds walked out of the detention facility. There, both were kidnapped by an armed suspect with an AR-15 rifle and were forced into a vehicle. The victims were not seen again until discovered dead on January 4.
State and federal police are reviewing personnel, vehicles, weapons, radios, and detention facilities according to a spokesman for state security, Roberto Alvarez.
Guerrero regularly registers some of the highest numbers for murders on a yearly basis. Olea Peláez confirmed that the state is home to 10 major criminal groups and more than 40 gangs operating in Acapulco, Chilpancingo, Iguala, Taxco, Chilapa, Sierra, Costa Grande, and Tierra Caliente.
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.)
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