7 Men Executed in Guerrero, Including a Self-Defense Group Member

"Morogris" for Borderland Beat

National Guard members arrive at the crime scene in Tixtla (photo credit: Sur de Acapulco)

Violence and terror returned to the southern state of Guerrero. On Tuesday, seven men were executed in Tetipac and Tixtla. Among the victims was government commissioner Julio César Coctecón Rendón.

In Acapulco, the largest city in Guerrero, cartel members left narcomantas (narcobanners) accusing a police chief of cartel collusion.

Events

Official reports indicate that at 6:00 p.m., gunmen stormed a house where a celebration was taking place in the Corralejo community (Tetipac Municipality) in northern Guerrero. The attack left six men dead and two wounded. All of the victims were members of the same family. So far the causes of the attack are unknown.

On the other hand, in the El Fortín neighborhood (Tixtla Municipality), the dismembered body of the Acatempa community commissioner, Julio Cesar Coctecon Rendon, around 12:00 p.m.

Reports say that the commissioner had been kidnapped by armed men who raided the town hours earlier. Coctecon Rendon was imprisoned at the Chilpancingo prison for almost three years after he was accusing of kidnapping and robbery against the police. He was released from prison last January after a court determined that the evidences against him were insufficient.

He was a member of the Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias (CRAC), a self-defense group and community police based in the Costa Chica and Montaña region of Guerrero. The CRAC provided security to over 15 rural communities.

Other groups include the Unión de Pueblos de la Costa Grande (UPCG), the Coordinadora Regional de Seguridad y Justicia-Policía Ciudadana y Popular (CRSJPCP), the Policía Ciudadana de Olinalá (PCO-CRAC), and the Movimiento Aplaxtlense Adrián Castrejón, (MAAC). Many self-defense groups have been in place since the 1990s, when the drug cartels began to put the squeeze on the local communities.

In the port of Acapulco, cartel members erected at least five narcobanners on pedestrian and vehicular bridges.

Narcobanner left throughout Acapulco (photo credit: Twitter @acapulcos)

The banners accused the current director of the Guerrero State Police, Esteban Maldonado Palacios, of having ties to Los Rusos, a criminal group reportedly headed by businessman Joaquin Alonso Piedra (alias "El Abulón"). Other members of Los Rusos include the brothers Juan Carlos Alberto, Jesús and Antonio Rodríguez Solano.

Los Rusos group is the armed wing of the Beltran Leyva Cartel that was once led by Carlos Alberto Navarrete Soriano AKA El Ruso, arrested in July 2016 in the port of Acapulco.

He was accused of maintaining direct communication with the capo Hector Beltrán Leyva, currently imprisoned. Security forces say El Ruso managed the money laundering and drug trafficking activities for the cartel in Acapulco.

The arrest of El Ruso was occurred in the midst of public accusations against Governor Héctor Astudillo for providing alleged protection to drug traffickers in Acapulco.

The Astudillo and Alonso Piedra relationship

In June 2016, cartel members left several banners across Acapulco where they accused the sons of Governor Astudillo of conducting business under the protection of state officials together with the current candidate for mayor of Acapulco for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Ricardo Taja Ramírez.

The Governor described the accusations against his children as blackmail by "a businessman", but he never identified the person responsible and it is unknown if he proceeded legally.

A month later, in July, Acapulco businessman Joaquin Alonso Piedra, AKA El Abulon, was arrested and accused of being a Beltran Leyva financial operator. Piedra has been publicly identified as being one of the main funders of Astudillo's campaign, as well as for other PRI and Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) politicians in Acapulco.

Main sources: Proceso; Sol de Acapulco (1); (2); Quadratin; Sur de Acapulco; Borderland Beat archives

Sources on self-defense groups: Replica Guerrero; UNM Digital Repository