Fugitives Ex-Mayor of Iguala and His Wife Arrested

Jose Luis Abarca, right, and Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa in Chilpancingo, Mexico, on May 8, 2014. (AP / Alejandrino Gonzalez)

 

Finally the ex-mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, affectionately referred to as “Lady Iguala were arrested in Mexico City this morning .   The couple had fled Iguala, on a “leave of absence”  shortly after the murders and kidnapping of the normal school students from  Ayotzinapa on Sept. 26 and 27. 

There have been false reports of their capture before, but this time the arrests are being reported by all of the major media. 

From reports posted on BB Forum this morning at 7:47AM, Feynman posted the following report from CTVnews;

MEXICO CITY -- Federal police early Tuesday detained the former mayor of the southern Mexican city of Iguala and his wife, who are accused of ordering the Sept. 26 attacks on teachers' college students that left six dead and 43 still missing.

Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested in Mexico City without resisting, according to two security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The couple was in the custody of the Attorney General's Office, where they were giving statements. At least 56 other people have been arrested so far in the case, and the Iguala police chief is still a fugitive.

The couple's detention could shed light on disappearances, which have prompted outraged demonstrations across the country to demand the students be found. The case forced the resignation of the governor of Guerrero state, where Iguala is located.

The students from a rural teachers college had gone to Iguala to canvass for donations and authorities say Abarca ordered the attack on them, believing the students were aiming to disrupt a speech by Pineda. They say the assault as carried out by police working with the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel. Authorities say Pineda was a main operative in the cartel.

They also have said the drug gang essentially ran the town of Iguala, with Abarca receiving payments of 2 million to 3 million pesos ($150,000-$220,000) every few weeks, as a bribe and to pay off his corrupt police force.

Guerreros Unidos have increasingly turned to the lucrative practice of growing opium poppies and sending opium paste to be refined for heroin destined for the U.S. market, according to a federal official.

The search for the students has taken authorities to the hills above Iguala, where 30 bodies have been found in mass graves but not identified so far as any of the students. Last week, the search turned to a gully near a trash dump in the neighbouring city of Cocula, but still no remains have been identified.

Later reports with more details were posted by Lala in a comment on the Forum;

 

More details in la Jornada  (translated by Lala) http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/11/04/detienen-en-el-df-a-jose-luis-abarca-y-su-esposa-declaran-en-la-seido-4253.html

José Luis Abarca and his wife arrested in Mexico City; they are declaring at the Seido

Elements of the Federal Police arrested early this morning in the delegation Iztapalapa, Mexico City, the former Mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, identified as the masterminds behind the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teaching school, Guerrero, on September 26.

Officials involved in national security cabinet confirmed that staff of the Federal Police followed up on a line of investigation obtained through intelligence and both the former Mayor and his wife were captured without  any attempt to escape or confrontation between authorities and the fugitives of Justice.

The arrest took place at around 2:30 am of Tuesday in the colonia Santa María Aztahuacán.

The Commissioner general of the Federal Police, Enrique Galindo Ceballos, reported via his twitter account that "the arrest of the former Mayor of Iguala was made this morning in the city of Mexico, Iztapalapa delegation.

"The coordinated work of the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto's security cabinet allowed this morning arrest of the former Mayor and his wife.

"The detention of José Luis Abarca and Maria de los Angeles Pineda is part of the investigations to locate the 43 students from Ayotzinapa," said the head of the Federal Police.

According to the information obtained following the arrest, José Luis Abarca and his wife María de los Ángeles were transferred to facilities of the attorney specializing in investigation of organized crime (Seido), where they are being questioned, since they are considered key witnesses for clues that lead to the location of the 43 normalistas disappeared by municipal policemen of Iguala and Cocula, in coordination with members of the criminal group Guerreros Unidos.

Abarca and his wife had rented a house in Iztapalapa, and hardly had the essential furniture, according to reports. Authorities are working on the confirmation of the identity of both detainees.

The research of the federal Government has established that students arrived in the city of Iguala the evening of September 26 to carry out boteos and raise funds to travel to Mexico City on October 2 to the commemoration of the massacre of Tlatelolco.

The same September 26 Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa rendered her report as head of the municipal DIF in Iguala and held a party to celebrate it. At the prospect of the normalistas affecting their party, the mayor ordered the police to attack the students, according to the investigation.

Municipal officials requested the support of their colleagues in Cocula and together gunned the students, leaving a first balance of six dead and dozens wounded. The attack was extended to members of a football team, los Avispones de Chilpancingo, in third division, since the police mistook them for students from the teaching school of Ayotzinapa.

Also police officers illegally detained an undetermined number of "normalistas" and took them to their facilities, then transferred them to the limits of Cocula and Iguala and handed them to an operator of the criminal group Guerreros Unidos (a division of the Beltrán Leyva brothers cartel ), identified as el Gil.

Allegedly the normalistas were brought to different points and nothing is known of their whereabouts, although several of the policemen, some of the known as halcones (lookout for the drug cartels) and other participants in the aggression against the students, led authorities to discover nine clandestine graves where the remains of 38 people have been located.

The Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), reported that of those 38 remains, in 28 cases none corresponds to students missing since September 26.

After investigations by the authorities started, José Luis Abarca and his wife fled Iguala, for 38 days they were fugitives, until this morning the Federal police arrested them in the Iztapalapa delegation