In a social media-posted video, a purported boss of a Mexican drug gang claims that an attack that killed 20 people, including a mayor, was actually directed at him.
Authorities stated on Friday that they were probing the veracity of the video claimed to Familia Michoacana cartel boss José Alfredo Hurtado.
The man in the video wears a Gucci T-shirt and an expensive-looking wristwatch as he talks about nearly avoiding the attack on Wednesday. His moniker, “The Strawberry,” is a slang phrase used in Mexico to refer to someone with wealthy tastes.
Hurtado stated that he was the target of the attack on Wednesday, when gunmen entered the municipality of San Miguel Totolapan and opened fire on a meeting with the mayor and other authorities.
Hurtado stated that he had intended to attend the meeting with the late Mayor Conrado Mendoza and his father, a former mayor, but that the shooters opened fire before he disembarked from his bulletproof car, allowing him to escape with his life.
Wilmer Rojas was murdered in a mass shooting in San Miguel Totolapan, Mexico, on Wednesday, October 5, 2022. On Thursday, October 6, 2022, residents of San Miguel Totolapan carried his coffin. Thursday, officials reported that a narcotics gang stormed a town hall meeting and murdered 20 people, including the mayor and his father. Eduardo Verdugo / AP
Hurtado says that he and the slain mayor had worked together in the past to combat the Tequileros gang, who claimed responsibility for the murders, stating, “The mayor and I began this struggle together.”
“We arranged this meeting with the mayor, his father, and the peace organization they have,” he claimed, alluding to a vigilante group that was active in Totolapan, Guerrero state’s southernmost municipality.
In Mexico, people of communities under siege from one cartel often form vigilante groups and turn to competing cartels for assistance in combating the oppressors; cartels in Mexico make the majority of their money through extorting protection fees from local farmers and business owners.
Hurtado revealed that, despite being wanted by authorities, he has lived freely in San Miguel Totolapan for some time.
Hurtado stated, “My house is in San Miguel, a block from the town hall, and I believe everyone knows it.”
Totolapan is a huge but sparsely populated mountainous municipality in Tierra Caliente, one of the most conflict-ridden regions in Mexico.
In a second video uploaded on social media on Wednesday, armed members of the Tequileros gang claimed responsibility for the deadly killing.
Thursday, Mexico’s assistant secretary of public safety, Ricardo Mejia, stated that the Tequileros are fighting the Familia Michoacana in the region.
Mejia stated, “This incident occurred in the context of a conflict between criminal gangs.” A organization known as the Tequileros ruled the territory for some time; they mostly smuggled and distributed opium, but also engaged in kidnapping, extortion, and a number of murders in the area.
Despite its name, the Familia Michoacana cartel was expelled from the adjacent state of Michoacan years ago by a vigilante movement. The cartel led by Hurtado and his brother has been accused of kidnappings, extortion, and violent attacks on police and military.
Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, well known as “El Tequilero,” ruled Totolapan for years as the leader of a drug cartel (“The Tequila Drinker”).
In 2015, in his lone known public appearance, de Almonte was seen on film drinking with the then-elect mayor of the town, the elder Mendoza. It was unclear if the elder Mendoza attended the meeting of his own accord or because he was compelled to do so.
In that film, de Almonte appeared so inebriated that he spoke incoherently and had to be propped up to sit by one of his subordinates.
Totolapan villagers are so fed up with Tequileros kidnappings in 2016 that they kidnapped the gang leader’s mother to secure the release of others.
The increased usage of the synthetic opioid fentanyl has decreased the demand for opium paste and reduced the degree of violence in Guerrero, where the Tequileros had long relied on the trafficking of opium paste from local poppy producers.
AFP reports that the Tequileros gang is affiliated with the formidable Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartel. According to the Department of Justice, the Jalisco cartel is “one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world.” The boss of the cartel, “El Mencho” Nemesio Oseguera, is among the most sought after by Mexican and American authorities.
At least 18 people were killed in an attack in the Mexican town of San Miguel Totolapan on October 5, 2022, according to police. Among those killed were the town’s mayor and his father, a former mayor. Reuters