The main square of the municipality of Cotija, Michoacán, was the place chosen by alleged members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) to place a threatening message against the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena).
Specifically, the narco-banner —found on October 11— was directed at General Ernesto Joaquín Geminiano Jiménez, who since May 2024 has served as commander of the 21st Military Zone, based in Vasco de Quiroga, Morelia.
The intimidation suggests that the military command would have broken a series of alleged agreements related to the entry of the four-letter cartel into the municipality of Cotija.
“You breached the agreements we had, you put them aside with your changes of so many personnel here in Cotija. So if you fail to comply, we will also fail to comply with what was discussed, so now your people should take good care of themselves because we are going all out here in Cotija and surrounding areas (sic.),” can be read in the first part of the message.
At the beginning of last September, authorities from the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) of Michoacán confirmed to Infobae Mexico that the CJNG, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, ‘El Mencho’, had been trying to enter the region for weeks without success.
“Either you get down to business with what we agreed to let us enter well and work or we will reveal the whole truth about who let us do what the [municipal] president did and the armed attacks that have taken place in Cotija,” mentions the banner attributed to the criminal group.
This fragment of the text suggests, as had been anticipated
previously, that the CJNG would have been behind the murder of Mayor Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa, killed months ago along with her escort, municipal police officer Jesús Valencia Martínez.
Shortly before nine o’clock on the evening of June 3, the two left a gym in the center of Cotija to go to the official’s house. While they were walking on Juárez Street, a group of hitmen aboard a white van intercepted them and, from the vehicle, unloaded their assault rifles.
Initial investigations revealed that the attack would have been perpetrated by a CJNG cell known as ‘Grupo Calaveras’. The murder is presumably related to the kidnapping of which the mayor was the victim in September 2023.
“Everything seems to indicate that these events may be related, given that [after her deprivation of liberty] a series of threats were made to municipal personnel, the demand that the Army and the National Guard not make an appearance in security tasks and the demand for the mayor herself to prevent federal forces from carrying out these tasks,” explained at the time the Jalisco prosecutor, Adrián López Solís.
Source: infobae
