Ziracuaretiro, Michoacán: Templar And Familia Michoacána Leader Is Commander of Pueblos Unidos

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat 

With the recent takeover of Ziracuaretiro by hundreds of armed civilians, who under the name of "Pueblos Unidos" have a presence in 8 municipalities, traveling through Michoacán with sufficient fire capacity to repel an army, residents of the region identified one of their leaders as a leader of the Knights Templar, who served as plaza chief in Morelia and avocado municipalities where, now as before, quotas are requested from the population in exchange for security.

On Wednesday, November 10, around a hundred armored vans and trucks advanced to the San Andrés Coru community, 20 minutes away by car from the municipal seat of Ziracuaretiro, and 27 minutes from Uruapan.

A summit was held in the local bullring, which is estimated to be attended by up to 400 armed civilians in about a hundred vehicles, some of them armored.

The press that gathered in the place captured the magnitude of the summit, where hundreds of civilians armed with all kinds of weapons, were quietly seated, many of them with their faces covered, while others communicated with radios and made calls by cellphone.

There some leaders spoke to the press that was summoned at the scene, and one of them introduced himself as "Commander Barrera", who according to the reports, would actually be Noel Mondragón Peña, alias "El Gorras", a subordinate of Nazario Moreno González “El Chayo”, leader of La Familia Michoacana and founder of the Knights Templar.

"El Gorras" was arrested in October 2010 by personnel of the defunct Federal Police, in the company of five subjects, caught in possession of cocaine, methamphetamine, weapons and cartridges of various calibers.

He then identified himself as the head of the plaza for the Familia Michoacana in Morelia, and in November of that year he was linked to a trial and transferred to a prison in Veracruz.

However, he was released and dedicated himself to extorting farmers from the countryside and businessmen, from whom, in the name of the Knights Templar, he charged fees in exchange for protection. In the case of Tacámbaro, he came to present himself as “head of the region”, according to Marco Lara Klahr, in his book “Family things: Where did Nazario go?

A corrido called "El Gorras" gives an account of Noel Mondragón Peña's area of ​​operation, "From Morelia to Ario, Nueva Italia, Apatzingán" and La Huacana.

For its part, Pueblos Unidos has a presence in Ario, Pátzcuaro, Nuevo Urecho, Salvador Escalante, Taretan, Múgica, Uruapan and Ziracuaretiro.

Noventa Grados