Iguala mayor's wife charged with organized crime offenses

By Lucio using information from AP and Borderland Beat archives

The wife of the ex-mayor of Iguala, the Mexican city where 43 college students went missing in September, has been ordered jailed indefinitely for organized crime, prosecutors said Monday.

Maria de los Angeles Pineda had been held under provisional arrest until now, in the case which has rocked Mexico. The 43 are feared dead.

Today, a judge issued a warrant for her pretrial detention "for her likely role in committing organized crime ... and operations with funds of illicit origin," said Tomas Zeron, who leads the criminal investigation unit of the prosecutor's office.

The students went missing September 26, in a massacre by a police-backed gang that sparked nationwide protests and caused a crisis for President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Confessions made during the investigation have indicated that the ex mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, ordered police to crack down on the students to stop them from protesting at a public event his wife was to lead.

                                               Maria Pineda's family including her parents

Authorities say the aspiring teachers vanished after narco-linked police attacked their buses in the city of Iguala, allegedly under orders from the mayor and his wife in a night of terror that left seven other people dead.  


Among the other seven murder victims,  were a 15 year old soccer player killed as police open fired on the team bus on that hellish night, and a young father Julio Mondragon, a normalista whose body was discovered on the morning of the 27th.  His face had been flayed

Pineda's family, including her parents, are members of Guerreros Unidos Cartel, with a long history of being a part of organized crime, initially with BLO.  All family members, with the exception of Maria, have been incarcerated at least once, for organized crime activities. 

Two of Pineda’s brothers were killed on the order of Arturo Beltrán Leyva.  Maria’s mother was kidnapped and interviewed by her captors.  In the video she was asked about the killings of her sons, and she said they were killed because of a betrayal to BLO.

The police then delivered the young men to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel  who told investigators they took them in two trucks to a landfill, killed them, burned their bodies and dumped them in a river.

For now, only one of the students has been positively identified from charred remains, which leaves little hope of finding the 42 others.