CJNG Regional Boss 'El Rucho' Killed in Veracruz

"stevectpa" for Borderland Beat; Liberal

CJNG boss El Rucho

Raúl Estrada Espinoza, alias "El Rucho", was assassinated along with another man on September 16 in Veracruz Municipality. The deceased was considered by state authorities as a regional boss of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in Xalapa, Veracruz, and parts of the border in Oaxaca. He was the faction boss of a local ring known as Los Piña (The Pineapples).

El Rucho was originally from the town of Benito Juárez in the municipality of Santiago Sochiapan (formerly Playa Vicente) and in recent days had led an armed attack in the city of Perot , where he was injured by a firearm. El Rucho allegedly distributed narcotics in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz.

According to the first reports, El Rucho, of approximately 56 years old, a man named José Antonio Estudillo Ordaz and an unidentified woman, were attacked with high-caliber weapons inside a house located in the Dos Caminos neighborhood, in the city of Veracruz. The only person who survived was the female.

At the scene, eye-witnesses indicated that a group of at least six gunmen arrived in a pick-up truck and opened fire against El Rucho and his companions. They quickly fled the scene and no arrests were made.

El Rucho began his career as a drug trafficker in Playa Vicente, in the region called La Cuenca del Papaloapan. In subsequent years, he led illicit businesses activities in the municipality of Tuxtepec, Oaxaca.

Police sources assured that in recent years the deceased was related to the brothers Jacinto and Alberto Rodríguez, whom the Veracruz government designated as leaders of the CJNG in the Llanos del Sotavento region, near the Cuenca of the Papaloapan. However, the same sources explained that these alleged criminals were no longer working together at the time of El Rucho's death.

Authorities arrive at the crime scene where El Rucho was killed

El Rucho moved his center of operations to Xalapa, where he coordinated the distribution of narcotics in the entire state and to the rest of the Mexican territory. He was the head of the CJNG faction Los Piñas, whom the Veracruz government blamed for masterminding multiple disappearances in the border region with Oaxaca, and for being behind the two clandestine mass graves found this year in the ranches owned by Humberto Andrade Ahuja, Taralila.

According to police reports, the CJNG boss in the entire state of Veracruz is José Roberto Sánchez Cortés ("El Comandante 80"), a former police officer.