'El Marro' Awaits Sentences For Homicide, Kidnapping And Organized Crime

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

A year after his arrest, homicides in the state have decreased 21%

El Marro is serving a year in prison.

A year has passed since his arrest and José Antonio N., alias El Marro, former leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, is sure and aware that he will stay in prison, but what he still doesn’t know is for how long and for which of all the crimes of which he has been accused he will be sentenced.

El Marro is serving a year in prison this August 2 and has not yet received a sentence, despite being linked to proceedings for three different crimes: two of the common jurisdiction, such as aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder against public servants, as well as one from the federal jurisdiction and that is for the crime of organized crime in the form of hydrocarbon theft.

Only for the crime of aggravated kidnapping, "El Marro" could reach a maximum penalty of 90 years, in accordance with the Criminal Code in force in Guanajuato, while for the crime of aggravated homicide in a degree of attempt against public servants he would reach another sentence of another 60 years, if found guilty.

La Gallera, the farm where El Marro was detained, stopped having movement, residents of the area refer.

The apprehension of El Marro is so far the most important detention of the six-year term, both at the state and federal level. At least that is how the head of the Executive Secretariat of the State Public Security System, Sophía Huett López, has referred to it, who said that the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has not been able to rebuild itself, as any leadership that emerges, that leadership that has been arrested.

"Guanajuato is doing its part, in the case of local organizations, you have seen it, it has been dismantled and as soon as one (of the new leaders) starts to rise, it stops again," he said, a call to the Federal Government to assist in the dismantling of the financial structure of this and all criminal group helped.

"As long as these structures are not fought, Guanajuato will continue to fill its prisons (...) what would be urgent is that in national terms we could end the large criminal structures."

For his part, the Governor of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo, assured that the Timón Coup, implemented at the beginning of his six-year term and with which El Marro was arrested, not only served to capture him, but also to recover a territory, such as the community of Santa Rosa de Lima, in Villagrán, which had literally been appropriated by the criminal group that even bore the name of this area.

In addition, homicides have registered a decrease of 21.8% in the comparison from January to July 2020, when El Marro was free, with January to July 2021, with this character in prison.

And it is that according to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, in the first seven months of the current year, two thousand 106 people have been murdered, while in the same period last year there were two thousand 695, that is, 589 people less.

During the year that El Marro has been imprisoned, the criminal group he led has also been dismantled, since his successor, El Azul, was also arrested.

El Marro does not want to be isolated

It’s been one year since José Antonio N. was sent to the El Altiplano prison, a place to which he didn’t want to be transferred to for nothing in this world.

El Marro didn’t want to be imprisoned outside his state and asked his defense to do everything possible to ensure his stay in Guanajuato, but he didn’t succeed. There, secluded in Cefereso number 1, as El Altiplano is known, he has heard the three process links that he has been subjected to.

El Marro knows that he will remain in prison and for this reason he has asked that he be treated as an ordinary person and above all, that he not be kept in isolation. Isolation causes depression.

This was revealed by a source who was at the hearing on August 12, when a federal judge identified him as the leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. It is for this reason he was accused of organized crime, for the theft of hydrocarbon.

"That I be treated like a person; if I did what I did or I didn’t, it’s something else; that I am not isolated, I am not undisciplined; if possible, Your Honor, it is what I wanted to express," was the only one request made by El Marro that August 12.

This assertion was reinforced in November 2020, when a judge partially rejected an injunction filed by the defense of El Marro, with which he requested, apart from the cessation of the alleged abuse, the solitary confinement and isolation of which he was allegedly the object. He asked for the opportunity to have a black Leadstar television. As well as some Sony headphones which were denied.

The alleged criminal who lived for days in isolation and constantly on the move, now appealed not to be left in isolation.

Cartel weakened

For Álvar Cabeza de Vaca, Secretary of Public Security of the State, it is valid to think that El Marro continues to be informed of what is happening in Guanajuato, but even so he would have little capacity to operate.

And he declared: the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, although it has what has been described as its third generation of leadership, with the presence of El M1, that more than a person, would be a collective leadership, the criminal group has been weakened.

Unlike the Cartel Jalisco New Generation, which isn’t based in the state, but decisions are made outside of it, so when a leader is arrested, another is sent with the same armed force, in the case of the Cartel Santa Rosa de Lima has been limited both in strength and in territory.

For this reason, he assured, the security strategies have yielded results, considering that not only has this group that is the cause of much of the violence in the state diminished, but it hasn’t been allowed to rebuild.

Along with El Marro, the members of his first circle of trust are also imprisoned: Raúl Alberto N, alias Diente; Silvestre N; Saulo Sergio N, El Saulo, Guillermo N. and José Cruz N, who were his alleged lieutenants. Adán N., alias El Azul, José Antonio N.'s confidant, is also detained. Little remains of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, but what remains continues to provoke violence in the state.

He still asks who betrayed him

El Marro has served 365 days in prison. Just last July 23 he lived there his 41st birthday, the first behind bars. A year away, he still believes that someone betrayed him, sources close to the case reveal.

"Who betrayed me?" El Marro asked that August 2 to the agents who were holding him on the ground at the time of his arrest. He asked three times who had betrayed him, but there was no answer.

The version of the betrayal was also reinforced, because after the arrest of El Marro, there were murders in which they left cardboard messages. Where the responsibility was attributed to the Cartel Santa Rosa de Lima. And in it they revealed that said attacks were for revenge against the "turncoats", as they call those who betrayed the criminal group.

The town of Franco Tavera, in Juventino Rosas, was until then the safest area for El Marro.

The town is just 10 minutes from Santa Rosa de Lima, the center of operations of the criminal group he led, and seven minutes from San Antonio de Los Morales. Where El Marro was born on July 23, 1980 and where his mother lived.

El Marro never really left that area, because there he wove his escape network within 15 towns in that region that today is experiencing relative calm. Since August 2020 there hasn’t been any homicides in the area.

El Sol de Salamanca