El Marro is Sentenced to 60 Years for Kidnapping

“Socalj” for Borderland Beat

José Antonio Yépez Ortiz still has another trial open for attempted murder against public servants, as well as the theft of fuel that consolidated him in the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel from Guanajuato.

José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, aka El Marro, leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, will spend 60 years in prison for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against a businesswoman and must pay a fine of 327,000 pesos for the case.

In a virtual hearing held at the Justice Center of the Mil de Valle Santiago prison, the Guanajuato Prosecutor's Office presented charges corresponding to the common jurisdiction against the criminal leader and his collaborators. An oral trial court evaluated the evidence for more than four hours and convicted those responsible.

According to the ministerial agency, Yépez Ortiz was found guilty along with five individuals who accompanied him on August 2, 2020, when the kidnapped person was released and all those of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel were captured from a Juventino Rosas farm.

“We have strong institutions to guarantee justice with the full weight of the law to those who break it. In the Government of Guanajuato, we will not stop until we achieve Guanajuato in peace that its good people deserve to live in,” Diego Sinhué Rodríguez, governor of the entity, published after the report. At the request of the federal authority, Marro was held in the maximum-security prison of the Federal Center for Social Readaptation Number 1, Altiplano, for more than a year and it was the defense who sought to delay the final hearing on the grounds of lack of information. in the files, he also requested additional time to read the evidence and look for witnesses.

On January 5, as reported by Borderland Beat, it was announced that he did not receive the protection requested after his complaints of mistreatment and isolation during his imprisonment, since he did not prove such accusations, which were also denied by prison staff located in Almoloya, State of Mexico. All the accused appeared remotely, because like the huachicolero leader, they are locked up in different jails. Legal proceedings are pending for fuel theft, organized crime, and attempted homicide that was reinstated after being dropped.

In the same way, another process is being carried out for the crime of attempted homicide and to the detriment of public servants, as a consequence of the attack against at least 20 elements that would execute the arrest warrant against him, belonging to the Special Reaction Group Immediate from the Attorney General of Guanajuato. An agent from the Public Ministry provided evidence that proves the former leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel his probable responsibility in the crime.

El Marro led a cell of criminals who were dedicated to the theft of fuel from the pipelines of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), an activity known as "milking" or huachicoleo, and over time, the cell escalated to become the Santa Rosa Cartel. of Lima, with control of Guanajuato.

It was on March 4, 2019, when the state government, with the support of federal forces, launched an offensive called Golpe de Timón against the criminal organization led by Marro and combat fuel theft in the area. But he fled through tunnels that connected four properties in the Laja-Bajío region, where he concentrated his illicit operations. In addition, he managed to get the population to support him with roadblocks and confrontations with the authorities, who, faced with unarmed civilians, could not act, while Yépez Ortiz evaded justice.

Yépez Ortiz was arrested on a farm in the municipality of Juventino Rosas by the Army and the Guanajuato Prosecutor's Office on August 2, 2020.

He fell along with eight of his operators and while they had a businesswoman from Apaseo el Alto kidnapped, as reported by Borderland Beat. However, the capo's fall has not represented a decrease in violence in the state. According to the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), the arrest resulted from intelligence work, since a judge granted two search warrants, which allowed the arrest of nine people and the release of the businesswoman who had been kidnapped. 

In the first search, five long weapons, three short weapons, a grenade launcher, a truck, an ATV, a motorcycle, and money were seized. El Marro, his head of security, Saulo Sergio "N" and four more people were at the scene. while in the second three people were arrested with 36,400 pesos in cash and as a result of the shots during the capture, one person was injured.

Initially, the monopoly of hydrocarbon theft in the area was in the hands of corrupt Pemex officials, who sought support from the local mafia to which Marro belonged. But the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel took over the business, grew with the support of more public servants, and unleashed a wave of violence by challenging the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in 2017. Two years later, when the persecution was already upon threatened the President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

With the arrest of its leaders and the advance of the CJNG, CSRL decreased in power, but crime remains unstoppable in Guanajuato, which is positioned as the entity in the entire country with the most murders that have been added since 2015, and in 2021 they reached more than eight thousand cases. The drug war is still going on.

Source: Infobae