Veracruz: Francisco Navarrete, alleged leader of the CJNG and 6 others, are assassinated

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat E-Veracruz.Mx

                          Hears a shot...reaches for his weapon...runs off stage

Xalapa, Ver.- In an attack during a private party, Francisco Navarrete Serna, the alleged leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), was killed.  He is  linked to the forced disappearance of five young people from Playa Vicente in 2016.

The official number of dead is six people and two with serious injuries, who were transferred to the Tierra Blanca hospital. The attack occurred while Navarrete and more people were broadcasting a live concert in the YemanYa room, in the Segundo Verde neighborhood.

Among the people killed are members of the musical group La Calle.

The concert was advertised on social networks of the newspaper El Sol de Tierra Blanca, which Francisco Navarrete owned. On October 7, 2019, this media was inaugurated by deacon Miguel Ángel Ochoa Cruz, a former candidate for Morena for mayor of that municipality.

That project also received congratulations from the local deputy for the same party, Margarita Corro Mendoza, who publicly acknowledged being the friend of the alleged criminal, who was imprisoned for three years for organized crime in the Gómez Palacio prison, Durango, although the August 3, 2019.

Navarrete Serna, alias “El Primo”, was pointed out by state and federal authorities in statements of having coordinated “the distribution of drugs, the operation of kidnappings and possibly several executions committed in this municipality (Tierra Blanca).”

In 2016, Francisco Navarrete, his son Francisco Navarrete Abraham, and an alleged lieutenant, Junior Alarcón, were charged with organized crime under criminal case 45/2016 and linked to the forced disappearance of five young people from Playa Vicente, committed on September 11, January 2016, during the government of Javier Duarte. 

But on August 3, 2019, the three (below Navarrete on left) left the Gómez Palacio maximum security prison in Durango, due to “errors” made by the then Attorney General of the Republic, today the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR).

In the region, one of the wounded works as a bodyguard in the Veracruz Congress.

"El Primo" is mentioned in two ministerial statements - to which E-Consulta Veracruz had access - as leader of the CJNG, who also allegedly served as a liaison for the Secretary of the Navy and coordinated crimes against humanity with the then deputy delegate of the Secretary of Public Security, Marcos Conde. 

Conde and seven other state police officers from Veracruz remain imprisoned for the forced disappearance of the five young people from Playa Vicente: Susana Tapia Garibo, Bernardo Benítez Arroniz, José Benítez de la O, José Alfredo González Díaz and Mario Arturo Orozco Sánchez, who were tortured and murdered at the El Limón ranch, a property that was also linked to Francisco Navarrete.

a total of 21 arrested suspects had all charges dropped

Despite these charges, a federal judge granted Navarrete amparo 11/2018, which was confirmed by an appeals court, after arguing a deficient investigation by the Attorney General's Office (PGR) for having duplicated statements (evidence) in the trials for organized crime and enforced disappearance, instead of having used independent elements in each of the judicial processes, the first of the federal jurisdiction and the second of the local jurisdiction.

“The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime Investigation (SEIDO) did not investigate beyond what had been investigated for enforced disappearance. The local process only focused on the conduct of the detainees with the disappearance and murder of the youth. "The investigation for organized crime had to go further, focused on the fact that they were dedicated to carrying out several kidnappings in the Tierra Blanca area, to obtaining more testimonies and exposing everything found in the El Limón ranch, as indications of fuel theft and theft of federal highway motor transport ”, referred at the time to the lawyer for the victims of Playa Vicente, Celestino Espinoza Rivera.