Police Arrest 5 with C-4 in Jalisco

Jalisco State police and Tonala municipal police arrested five people, including an ex marine and an ex soldier, and siezed four kilos of C-4 plastic explosives, a weapons arsenal, and tactical equipment as a result of an operation that began with the discovery of an VBIED located one block away from the municipal police headquarters in the city of Tonala, a suburb in the Guadalajara metropolitan area minutes before noon this Thursday.

A few minutes before 12 noon on Thursday, police in Tonala responded to an anonymous warning that a motorcycle rigged with explosives had been abandoned outside of a gasoline station at the corner of Tonalteca and Constitution Avenue, right in center of town and one block from the police headquarters.

After arriving at the scene police searched the motorcycle and found a suitcase or backpack with a whiskey bottle containing explosive material, connected to cables and other implements, including a GPS device. Minutes later, municipal police arrested the two men who left the motorcycle at the scene.

Following the arrest of the two men and the securing of the explosive device containing less than a pound of C-4 plastic explosive, Jalisco state police officers arrested the other three suspects.

Of these, Jorge Carlos Hurtado Castelazo was identified as an ex marine while Jose Antonio Cajigal Guizar was identified as an ex soldier. The other thre men were identified as Rafael de Jesús Rodríguez Martínez, José Manuel García and Juan Manuel Romero Saucedo Anaya.

The Jalisco public security director, Francisco Alejandro Solorio Arechiga, announced in a press conference Thursday night that the supplier of the weapons and explosives is an active duty member of the armed forces stationed at the military camp # 1 in Mexico City.

"In two actions the five suspects were arrested, the first two near the motorcycle bomb, and then the other three were arrested while attempting to escape from a local hotel. They confessed that a soldier at the military camp # 1 in Mexico City supplied them. At this time the relevant authorities have the information," he explained.

In addition to the four kilos of C-4, authorities also seized, seven assault weapons, six pistols, 30 magazines and over two thousand rounds of ammunition.

In addition, they seized 12 kilos of marijuana, 14 tactical vests, and 14 caps and 15 shirts with the initials MFG, which symbolize an alliance of the cartel del Milenio, La Familia (Michoacana) and the Gulf cartel.

According to Solorio Arechiga, the suspects acknowledged belonging to a cell of the criminal organization known as “La Resistencia” which has been one of the groups responsible for the current wave of violence in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.