Another Mexico Mixup: The Real Fantasma Identified

      Borderland Beat

While everyone else ran with RioDoce’s photo as real, myself and you readers knew…’no way’.

A reader sent me this article early yesterday but I have not had time to post.  Here is a bit of the explanation of the ‘mix up’ identity.  Now this guy does look like the Fantasma photo of old and the one I used on the original story and everyone followed suit. 

RioDoce is the source of the erroneous photo in the first place but has corrected the error and a complete explanation, that story is below. ….Paz, Chivis

 

EL Fantasma took on the name Jonathan Salas Avilés. Hence the confusion. The real Jonathan  was not an accomplished shooter. He had joined the ranks of Chapo Guzman a year before he was killed in the clash Sinaloa cartel had with the Navy the night of March 1, 2012, and of which the elusive head of sicarios reportedly escaped in the fire.

Ticante Marcelino Castro is the Phantom's real name, he was arrested by the army at dawn on Saturday February 9, 2013, but at this point neither the Ministry of National Defense, who arrested him, his name has been made public.

 

On March 1, 2012 a clash occurred in Oso Viejo, receivership of Quilá, Culiacán, killing four alleged offenders. Two of them were incinerated in a van Cherokee, where they found the remains of several guns and ammunition,  one was lying on the ground, a few feet from the vehicle. The real Jonathan died in a clinic in Culiacan, where he had been admitted with a gunshot wound to the head.

From the early hours of the events was speculated that El Fantasma had died in the clash.

Also reported  by the people of the region; the gunmen had shot down  a helicopter.

 

The reason the mix up occurred was the name of who was taken by ambulance to the Red Cross in Culiacan:

Jonathan Salas Avilés. 

[at top left the Real Jonathan and misidentified as El Fantasma]

But the authorities, the Attorney General, the Navy and the Mexican Army itself, contributed to the confusion.

Confirming  the next day that the man who had died in the clinic had been identified as Jonathan Salas Avilés, but it had not been established to be El Fantasma. Moreover, were never provided the names of the other three gunmen dead, opening avenues for speculation.  

 Another factor contributing to the mess that the operation was March 2012, as stated by the general himself of the Ninth Military Zone, Moises Melo Garcia had been done by "federal forces" (referring to the Marina) and the Army only been involved in the protection of the area after the clash. But then, from Mexico City, the Department of Defense claimed the operation.

Now, when the real Fantasma was arrested in Costa Rica, neither the authorities nor the state, nor federal, gave his first name.

 

The name assumption (between the two men) began with;  “Lend me your name”, El Fantasma had ordered Jonathan Salas, who had a relation with that group, doing minor tasks. He lived in the Colony Lazaro Cardena, by the street Emilio Portes Gil, in a neighborhood that st nightfall  becomes a black hole because of the scabrous of the land and the lack of public light.

El Fantasma was already a reference on the criminal world, but not many knew his real identity.

Native from Veracruz, ex-military, was at the service of Municipal Police of Culiacan at the beginning of the last decade. He did not last long in the corporation. Those who met him refer to him as a man of few words, serious and even describe him as “peaceful”....continues

That would be when he was a police agent, because the fame that he did outside has nothing to do with that personality. It was said about him that on one or two occasions he entered the premises of the Municipal Police to have released companions that had fallen in jail for peeing in public.

Jose Manuel Niño de Rivera was already the chief of the corporation and one of his incursions (referring to Fantasma) caused that around the perimeter of the central base of the Police, a protection wall was build.

Ticante Castro resigned as police agent to incorporate fully to the group of the Sinaloa Cartel. Under the orders of Damaso Lopez Nuñez, one of the main operators of Joaquin Guzman, he (Fantasma) was in charge of “cleaning” the plaza.

Thereby the speed in which the attorney of Justice, Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez, said that with the recent arrest of El Fantasma, it was expected a reduction in the rate of homicides in Culiacan.

Salas Aviles agreed to El Fantasma’s request without hesitation,  and thereafter, rumors began to spread through comments that slipped to some narco blogs  published on the internet, that the name of this hit men (fantasma) was “Jonathan Salas Aviles”.

Rumor has it that name donor took the issue so seriously that he even got to say that he was El Fantasma. Lending his name had conected him to the chief of gun men and frequently was found in his first circle of security, although he didn’t really had a establishment with guns that established an achievement to be there.

Three days after he was killed, the attorney of justice announced that it was confirmed the identity of Jonathan and that a comparison with the federal authorities allowed them to establish that this person did not have any criminal records.

He also denied that this person was El Fantasma, although it was never mentioned the real name of him. (El Fantasma)

The Army has memory

They had looked for him for a very long time. El Fantasma had committed an “operation” mistake that his chiefs had complained about and that the Army never forgave. In 2011, during an operation of intelligence, one of the main operators of Ismael el Mayo Zambada was arrested, known as el Meño. It was in Costa Rica, in a house that the gangster usually went to.

On the operation,  elements of the Third Military Region had participated and four of them, once the objective was settle, were returning to the harbor through the Maxipista (freeway), when they were intercepted by a commando whose leader was el Fantasma.

They were taken to the mountains and were kept there. Then the chiefs of the cartel communicated with military chiefs and proposed an exchange: the four militaries –apparently of the area of intelligence- for El Meño. While dealing with negotiations, El Fantasma played with the abducted. He tortured them, humiliated them.

Sources of Riodoce affirm that from the side of the military, leaders that were located in Jalisco at the time participated in the negotiation. It was them who communicated with the high rank official of Sedena to ask him to accept the exchange and protect the life of the four elements that were in the hands of Marcelino Ticante Castro.

Finally, he accepted and the agreement was told to the regional military chiefs. El Meño had been transferred to the premises of the Ninth Military Zone. Aware of the agreement, El Fantasma released one of the detainees, leaving him naked on the mountain, south of Culiacan. Then, he released the other three and then El Meño was taken to Costa Rica by the same military that had “captured” him.

But El Fantasma had committed the mistake of torturing his victims, which his chiefs complained about. It was not necessary to do so, least if we were negotiating the freedom of Meño, they told him.

It didn’t go further and El Fantasma continued coordinating cleaning operations of the cartel, but now with certainty that the federal government would go after him.

Military and elements of the Mexican Navy siege with intelligence work. Several operations were made in Valle de San Lorenzo and in the mountains south of Culiacan, searching for El Fantasma and also another operator of the cartel that at the end died in unusual conditions: Manuel Torres Felix.

Marcelino Ticante had become a problem for the chiefs of the cartel, not only by the persecution he was into, but by complains of the villagers that lived terrorized by the passing of the convoys of El Fantasma through their villages.

That is why there is doubt that his capture was the  the result from intelligence work. That is why the suspicion is that it was more of a “delivery”.

Source: Rio Doce