Sicario Arrested in Killing of the Assistant Attorney General

Alleged hit man arrested in killing of assistant attorney general

By Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times
Mexican federal police have arrested a suspected Juárez drug cartel hit man in the murder of a Chihuahua assistant attorney general, police officials said Tuesday.

Cristian Rosado Mendoza, 23, was arrested and a 9 mm handgun was seized Monday after police stopped Rosado, who was driving a car with Texas license plates in a neighborhood near the Juárez airport.

Rosado, alias "El Cris," is accused in the fatal shooting of assistant attorney general Sandra Ivonne Salas Garcia during an ambush in Juárez on June 30 that also killed one of Salas' bodyguards and wounded another. Salas supervised internal affairs cases.

Rosado allegedly told investigators La Linea, as the Juárez drug cartel is known, ordered Salas' death because she had become involved in cartel business in the Cereso prison in Juárez.

Police said Rosado, originally from the Mexico City area, has a criminal record for drug smuggling in the U.S. and was jailed on a robbery charge in the Cereso prison until being released two months ago.

After his release from prison, Rosado allegedly began working as a sicario (hit man) for La Linea.

Authorities said Rosado is suspected in at least 15 homicides in the state of Chihuahua, including the fatal shooting of five men at a burrito stand on May 28 in east Juárez.

Rosado allegedly told police that Omar Carrasco Molina, alias "La Loba" (the female wolf), was the main target of the burrito stand hit. Carrasco was reputed to be a strong drug trafficker with the Sinaloa drug cartel led by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

Rosado has been transferred to the custody of an federal organized crime unit in Mexico City.

More than 5,600 people, including at least five Tuesday, have been killed in Juárez since the start of a war between the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels in 2008.

Translation from Google:

Federal Police (PF): What is your name?
Arrested (D): Cristian Rosado Mendoza.

PF: How old are you, where are you from originally and what is your nickname?
D: 23 years, I am originally from Mexico City and I go by "El Cris".

PF: How long have you been here in Ciudad Juarez?
D: Eleven years.

PF: What do you do for a living?
D: I'm a sicario.

PF: What group do you work?
D: For "La Línea."

PF: When did you start doing this activity?
D: About two months.

PF: How much did they pay you per week for doing this activity?
D: Two thousand pesos a week and sometimes I worked every day, but sometimes we don't execute people, there are times the comrades with long arms (one of the criminal cells) come first and we arrived afterwards, just to clear their get-away when they fleeing the scene.

PF: Tell me, tell me, why were you in the Cereso (prison)?
D: Attempted robbery, and order of re-aprehensión.

PF: Why were arrested in the United States?, Tell me.
D: For crossing marijuana through the river (border).



Translation for the video:

"On June 30 we received the call to go to kill the assistant attorney, from there the Babícora (sic) had told us she was getting into the internal affairs people who are detained at the Cereso (jail). A person from inside that was with her or that is someone close to her, was the one who called us and told us that at around 3:30 she was going to go out. He told us he was going out for food and for us to watch the vehicle so we could identify it later when she would be travelling in it."

We did not know if (the informant) was a person who was her escort or someone closer to her in the same department. Then at 3:30 we arrived to watch for her to come out, we already knew the vehicle in which she was travelling in, because the person that had gone to buy food and had already returned and told us that in 20 minutes he would leave again but this time with her on board the vehicle to leave the station.

But she did not come out, we waited for her for about three hours until night. About 7 or 7:30 is when we saw the SUV move, we were in four vehicles, a green Explorer and Cherokee.

The SUV's were waiting in front of the "Smart," waiting for her to drive so we could intercept her, we were going to wait for her to move a little away from the police station and we were on the other side by the park just waiting. My other partner was at the (restaurant) Taco H to follow her from behind, but she came out too fast and he could not reach her.

When the companions who were in the "Smart" in the vans saw that she was moving toward the bridge on the street Las Torres, they approached from one side of Soriana and overtook her down below the bridge. That was when they started shooting at her and soon after they said they had already performed the work leaving the scene.

We then just arrived, we went by and saw she was dead. Then one of the escorts who was with her in the SUV got out yelling for help with his gun up. Because they had told us that the informant was someone close to her we thought it was him, that is why we thought they had not done anything to him.

I mean, we're not sure if it's him or someone from the department closest to her, we just took our stuff and we left. That is when we were leaving toward the street Gomez Morin we managed to see from the rear view mirror that a silver Lexus or Malibu picked up the escort that was waiting to be rescued or something, so they came and picked him, but we do not know him, just that he was hurt.