13 Hitmen Killed in SLP After Abducting and Killing Officer

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat 

13 cartel hitmen were killed by GCE officers inside a house in San Luis Potosi just hours after their group was caught burying a dead GCE officer who they had recently abducted.

On August 3, 2022, an officer of the State Civil Guard (GCE), named Héctor Mayorga Muñoz and his wife were driving a patrol vehicle down highway 70 just outside the town of Tamasopo, San Luis Potosi, when they were ambushed by a group of cartel hitmen who forced them to a stop. Armed hitmen forced both the officer and his wife out of their vehicle at gunpoint, pushing them into one of their vehicles.

The gunmen then doused Officer Mayorga Muñoz’s vehicle in fuel and set it on fire. Near the burning vehicle, they placed a narco message, written on cardboard, which said he was abducted for being a traitor. The message was signed by the cartel group Zetas Vieja Escuela (or Zetas Old School, often shortened to ZVE).

By the time authorities arrived on scene, there was no sign of the officer or his wife and only the incinerated husk of his vehicle remained. 

Authorities only managed to identify that it was a patrol vehicle by running the plate number through the system because all exterior characteristics of the vehicle had been burned away.

Their abduction triggered a number of large scale search operations. On Thursday, August 4, 2022, authorities flew two helicopters over the regions near where the abduction had occurred, scanning the wilderness for signs of the kidnappers. 

At some point in the afternoon, one of the helicopters saw suspicious activity going on in a remote part of the municipality of San Ciro de Acosta. Four individuals were seen while they appeared to be in the process of secretly burying a number of human remains. These human remains are presumed to have been people who were killed by the same cartel group and the act of burying the bodies was a presumed attempt to dispose of evidence of the homicides. 

Once the four cartel members heard the helicopter overhead, they tried to flee, running in different directions. The helicopter radio-ed up what they had observed and requested ground forces help them capture the fleeing grave-diggers. The helicopter followed two of the cartel members and relayed their location to the ground forces, among them a number of GCE officers, who managed to arrest the two individuals. 

The detainees, both women, were interrogated and eventually agreed to lead investigators to the location of the graves they had just been digging.

While this was going on, the two other grave diggers, both men, were arrested by other ground forces.

The women brought them to a clearing where in shallow graves, two recently deceased people had been placed. After a brief inspection, it became clear that the deceased were the abducted officer, Héctor Mayorga Muñoz, and his wife. 

It is important to note that the deceased GCE officer, who happened to be the “Chief of Experts” for the whole region of the state, was discovered half buried by other GCE officers prior to everything that is to follow.

Codigo San Luis reports that following the discovery of the buried officer, a large amount of law enforcement was called in the region and they began to search for cartel members related to the abduction and burial. 

According to the official version of events, later that same day, at approximately 5:00 pm, a patrol of GCE officers spotted a suspicious group of armed individuals while they were out on a patrol within the area known as "Vaqueros", within the municipality of El Rayón. 

The newspaper Jornada wrote that "when they realized they had been spotted, a confrontation began and the GCE agents repelled the attack of the individuals who were hiding inside a house."

The GCE agents managed to kill 13 cartel members - 10 men, 3 women- who were inside the house or inside vehicles parked just outside the house. Many of those killed were wearing tactical vests. 

No unblurred images of the deceased have been released as of the writing of this story so it's unknown if these vests bore the insignia of any particular cartel group. 

No GCE agents were injured or killed during the shootout. Some reports allege the two men who were present at the grave site participated in this shootout before being arrested.

Once the shootout had concluded, the home was  searched and the following was seized:

5 long-barrel 7.62×39 firearms 

22 long-barrel .308 firearms

1 pickup truck with a license plate from Tamaulipas 

1 double cab pickup truck, Ford Lariat, with Florida license plates

1 gray Honda CRV with no license plate

1 white pickup truck with black stripes, inside a shed

1 gray Ford pickup truck, without tires, mounted between stones and metal structures, inside a shed

According a somewhat-outdated map showing the regions that each cartel group controls, El Rayón falls under the control of a Gulf Cartel group. 

Meanwhile the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) is believed to control the area just to the west and Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE) are believed to control the area just to the north. That being said, regional control may have shifted since this map was created. 

ZVE, despite the Zetas name, currently operates as a Gulf Cartel subgroup. They have an alliance with some parts of the CDG and yet act as rivals to other parts of the CDG. 

Further complicating this, the cartel group with the most motive to abduct a GCE officer may be the CJNG, who were hit with a number of large seizures but law enforcement in the area in the last few months. 

Two key pieces of physical evidence point towards the attack being perpetrated by the ZVE, however. 

The vehicle with the Tamaulipas license plate points towards the perpetrators being ZVE (or Golfos), due to their strong presence within the state of Tamaulipas. 

The narco message sign left at the abduction site of the GCE officer was signed by ZVE, however there is always some slim possibility that a cartel group signed the name of a rival group in order to heat up the plaza. 

Even if we cannot definitively determine who perpetrated the attack based on the available information, the SLP authorities undoubtedly can, because they have 4 detainees from the group and further information about all of the individuals states of origin. 

Abduction Sources: El Sol, Pulso SLP, Codigo San Luis

Graves Sources: Vigilante Huaste, Codigo San Luis, MetropoliSanLuis, El Cambio de San Luis, En Primera San Luis 

Shootout Sources: Secretary of Security Official Statement, Associated Press, Milenio, Jornada, El Universal, El Sol de San Luis, CNN Espanol, Crisis 24, WRAL, Agencia Informativa de Mexico