Two Men Bound & Executed In Salinas, San Luis Potosí

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The bodies of two executed men were found in the municipality of Salinas, in San Luis Potosí state.

On the morning of August 30, 2021, the emergency services phone line received a call reporting the discovery of two bodies placed near a road at the San Luis-Torreón junction of Highway 49. The dispatcher sent out Policía de Investigación (PDI) officers to confirm the discovery. 

Officers confirmed that at the reported location the remains of two men had been placed. The two men appeared to have their hands bound behind their back with either some sort of white linen cloth or plastic wrapping. A black plastic trash bag appears to cover the chest of one of the two men, with the remnants of another trash bag laid underneath his remains. 

The two men were later identified as residents of Salinas, one was 21 years old while the other was 32 years old. 

Initial forensic examinations showed “severe signs of violence and torture” according to La Roja. A serious wound can be seen on the back of the knee of the 21 year old man, who can be seen on the right side of the photo. Palestra reports both men had gunshot injuries, while Codigo San Luis specifies that they had received a coup de grâce, or death shot administered to end the life of a person suffering.

The motive behind the double homicide is unknown at this time. These two bodies were found near Salinas municipality, in San Luis Potosi, which notably lies close to the border with the state of Zacatecas.

Warning: Graphic photos below this point.

The Cartel Landscape of San Luis Potosí

As previously covered by MX on Borderland Beat, the geographical location of the state of San Luis Potosí makes it a lucrative plaza for drug cartels. Various organizations have been fighting for control of San Luis Potosí because it is a necessary drug route in order to reach states like Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Guanajuato and Zacatecas. 

In the last decade, San Luis Potosí has suffered the settlement of at least six criminal organizations. According to authorities, the first criminal groups to settle in SLP were the Gulf Cartel and their former armed wing turned rival, Los Zetas. However, due to the splintering of Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel was ultimately left with a greater presence in San Luis Potosí as of today. The more recent eruption of violence has been attributed to the arrival of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) in San Luis Potosí.

Link to Full Size Map

In addition to the San Luis Potosí being valuable in its own right, its proximity to the state of Zacatecas has led to an increase in cartel violence. The Zacatecan war between the CJNG and CDS bleeding over into San Luis Potosí was mentioned by Zeta Tijuana earlier this month. Just recently, in June 2021, nine men were found dead on a San Luis Potosí highway, however authorities believe the men were not native to the state but actually from Zacatecas.

Currently, the Gulf Cartel (CDG) is believed to have a presence in 19 municipalities of San Luis Potosí. They are generally in the Altiplano and Huasteca regions of San Luis Potosí, such as Valles, Tamuín and Ébano municipalities. Recently CDG’s Grupo Scorpion captured the alleged daughter of a rival from her home in the 20 de Noviembre neighborhood of Cuidad Valles, interrogating her on video in July 2021. 

There is evidence of the CDG being present in western San Luis Potosí as they released a video from the capital city in late July 2021. In the video they are walking around the city while carrying heavy weapons while threatening those who support “El Cotorra”, “El Chorre” and Ramon, who are presumed rival local leaders. It was later reported that this video was recorded specifically in the Nava and Santa Fe neighborhood of the city. 

There is also the group Cartel de los Alemanes. The group was led by Alfredo Alemán Narváez, alias “Comandante Aleman”, who was arrested in 2011 but even in recent years he is still regularly accused of organizing Los Alemanes operations. Los Alemanes began as a CDG group but later split with the CDG and waged war against them. 

They are sometimes referred to as a Zetas group in media reports but the group itself seems to identify more as a CDG group. In a November 2020 video, they stated that they were at the service of the CDG - Matamoros Los Espartanos faction leader Evaristo Cruz Sanchez, alias “El Vaquero”. 

In August 2020, Los Alemanes released a video in which they delivered a message on behalf of themselves and Los Zetas splinter group Old School Zetas (Zeta Vieja Escuela) addressed to José Guadalupe Castillo Celestino, director of the Ministerial Police, saying he had broken the truce he had with them. In March 2021, they were accused by the CJNG of being involved in two high profile San Luis Potosí murders. 

The various Los Zeta splinter groups (examples of which include Northeast Cartel and Zetas Vieja Escuela) are believed to have a presence in 11 of the 58 municipalities of San Luis Potosí. These include Ciudad del Maíz, El Naranjo, and other places in the southern Huasteca region.

Cartel de Noreste activity has been reported in the city of San Luis Potosí itself towards the end of July 2021, with the disposal of corpses in a van marked with CDN as well as drawings of ghosts, the insignia of those working under “Commandante Fantasma”. There were also narcomantas bearing the ghost of Commandante Fantasma found  in June 2021 that accompanied a burned body found inside a vehicle in San Luis Potosí city. 

Commandante Fantasma’s CDN group is also believed to be operating in Zacatecas. In May 2021 he was linked to the town of Monte Escobedo in Zacatecas multiple times. But of note, Monte Escobeda is in the far western side of Zacatecas, considerably far away from San Luis Potosi state. 

The CJNG’s influence is relatively new in San Luis Potosí. They announced their presence in the area in July 2019. In January 2020, they released a video addressing the citizens of San Luis Potosí, saying: “We are here to fight the rats, extortionists and kidnappers belonging to the Zetas, Northeast Cartel and Gulf Cartel.”

Most of their presence is believed to be concentrated in the municipalities that border the state of Guanajuato. Law enforcement authorities say that municipalities like Rioverde, Salinas, Villa de Reyes, Tierra Nueva, Santa María del Río, and the state capital of San Luis Potosí city, are where the CJNG mainly operate out of. 

CJNG’s San Luis Potosí branch released a video in March 2021 in which they deny involvement in the recent high profile murders of Julio César Galindo Pérez (the local president of COPARMEX) on March 1 2021 and Rodrigo Sánchez Flores (PRI politician turned criminal, alias “El Ferrari”) on March 3 2021. CJNG says the murders were masterminded by José Pedro Bárcenas Martínez, “El Peter” who was ordered to kill them by CDG’s Evaristo Cruz Sanchez, alias “El Vaquero” and Alfredo Alemán Narváez, alias “Comandante Aleman”, the leader of the aforementioned Los Alemanes group. 

Sources

Salinas Story Sources: Informador, Quadratin, Codigo San Luis, Pulso SLP, Palestra, La Roja

CDG Sources: BB- San Luis Potosi, a Lucrative Plaza, BB- CDG Daughter Abduction, BB- Gulf Cartel Searching For Cotorra

Los Alemanes Sources: Vanguardia, BB- March 2021 Video, El Universal 

Los Zetas Sources: BB- San Luis Potosi, a Lucrative Plaza, BB - San Luis Potosí CDN July 2021, BB- Comandante Fantasma in Zacatecas 1, BB- Comandante Fantasma in Zacatecas 2

CJNG Sources: BB- San Luis Potosi, a Lucrative Plaza, BB- CJNG February 2020 SLP Video, BB- March 2021 Video