Rafael Caro Quintero, the State of Guerrero, and Local Politics

"Parro" for Borderland Beat

Note: This article was originally published by investigative journalist Sandra Romandia. This is a translated and edited version. The original version is linked below.

Rafael Caro Quintero's (right) operator in Acapulco, Guerrero, Fernando Delgadillo Hermosillo ("El Milko"), was killed inside his green mini cooper (left) earlier this year.

The green mini cooper with black stripes crossed the Costera Las Palmas avenue, behind the luxurious La Isla shopping center, in Acapulco, Guerrero. The car had left the Mayan luxury housing complex. Inside the expensive sports car, the body of Fernando Delgadillo Hermosillo, alias "El Milko", was bleeding uncontrollably. A woman, his companion, was transferred minutes before by ambulance after receiving a bullet impact that went through one of her legs.

Delgadillo Hermosillo did not survive the attack by armed men who shot him from another car in broad daylight and in the middle of the street. They killed him right in the heart of Acapulco's main tourist area, the Diamante Zone, which is supposed to be the safest area of the city.

The authorities reported that the victim was a drug trafficker and part of the Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, group headed by drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero.

But "El Milko" was not just any drug dealer.

He was in Acapulco to coordinate a part of the new structure of Caro Quintero’s group, which inherits part of what was left by the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) in the area. The port of Acapulco is an area of ​​relevance because it is a “strategic stop” for drugs arriving to Mexico by sea.

The drugs are then distributed from Acapulco to the distributed to warehouses in the Central Supply Market (Central de Abastos) of Mexico City. The drugs are hidden inside shipments of coconut and mango, as well as shipments of fish and in double-bottomed trailer boxes.

For more than a decade, one of the criminal groups with greatest influence in Acapulco was the one left after the capture of Héctor Beltrán Leyva, "El H", the last of the siblings who headed the BLO. 

The remaining group has now been taken over by Caro Quintero and his nephews. Caro Quintero's group has taken control of unexploited land in some areas of the port, especially in the Diamante Zone. Some of the properties have been managed by the Alonso Piedra family, who officially present themselves as real estate entrepreneurs.

Joaquín Alonso Piedra was arrested by federal authorities in 2016 for his links with criminal groups and money laundering. He is the father of Iván Alonso Bustamante, husband of Evelyn Salgado, the candidate for Governor of Guerrero. She is representing the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) Party under Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Evelyn is the daughter of Félix Salgado Macedonio, a former senator who was pulled out of the governor race amid a massive rape scandal.

“Alonso Piedra and his son Alonso Bustamante have been under investigation for laundering large amounts of money from criminal groups which have been used to buy real estate. Ivan, Evelyn’s husband, has already been detained. Everyone in Acapulco knows of their ties with organized crime, it is not a secret”, a source from the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office confirmed.

But the Alonso family has had protection within the Guerrero state government over the years. The former President of the Superior Court of Justice in Guerrero, Robespierre Robles Hurtado, who owns a luxurious resort in Las Vegas, has been the head notary of the family.

Evelyn Salgado is not well known in the local political arena. But she already carries the ties of her in-laws who are very close to her father, Felix Salgado Macedonio.

Guerrero faces a crossroads: on one hand, its Evelyn Salgado and her family's dark past; on the other, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) contender, Mario Moreno Arcos, who is also related to one of the most violent drug lords in the region, Onesimo "El Necho" Marquina, leader of the Tlacotepec Cartel.

Perhaps time will shed more light on the scope of these links between politics and drug trafficking organizations, but what is certain is that the people of Guerrero are facing difficult times in the next six-year term.

Sources: Milenio