José Santos of Los Viagras Arrested

As reported by Proeyecto  Puente

Federal agents and authorities from Guerrero arrested in Querétaro José Santos “N”, considered the principal generator of violence and criminal operator of Los Viagras as well as La Familia Michoacana in the area of Zihuatanejo, where various crimes such as kidnapping he had been attributed to him.

According to the Attorney General’s Office of Guerrero, this subject was considered a priority target of the authorities; in addition, he has an arrest warrant for kidnapping the owner of a tortilla shop in 2018.

The accused is considered one of the main operators in that municipality who was dedicated mainly to drug sales, charging extortion fees, kidnapping, and homicide, among other crimes.

The operation involved the Army, the National Anti-Kidnapping Coordination, the Navy Secretariat, in addition to the Police and Attorney General’s Office of Querétaro, as previous intelligence work was carried out in this state to locate José Santos "N".

According to data within the investigation folder C-163/2020, this leader of Los Viagras is identified due to his alleged responsibility in the kidnapping of a tortilla shop owner in Zihuatanejo on February 14, 2018, when the victim was inside his business in the Dario Galeana neighborhood.

On that Valentine’s Day, several people showed up at the establishment to take him and then demand money in exchange for letting him go. The Guerrero Attorney General's Office did not specify if ransom was paid for the man's release, but all indications are that this was the case, as no charges of disappearance or murder were added.

According to the investigations, José Santos "N" is also accused of another kidnapping in Zihuatanejo. For this crime, five men and one woman are already in pre-trial detention and are accused of co-participation in the kidnapping of a man.

No more major reports have been made public about this man, but he has been identified as being part of Los Viagras, led in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán by Nicolás Sierra Santana, El Gordo, and/or El Coruco, who maintains an alliance with other remnants such as the Tepalcatepec Cartel, Familia Michoacana, Blancos de Troya and Caballeros Templarios, among others.

They all joined together in Carteles Unidos to dispute territory with the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), around 2019. However, some remnants were allied with the forces of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho.

LosViagras are made up of the eight brothers. At first they were allied with La Familia Michoacana, then with Los Caballeros Templarios. They broke with them and re-united against the CJNG. Their base of operations is in Buenavista, the municipality where the cell's founder, Carlos Sierra Santana, was killed in 2017.

Afterwards, the members of the criminal group ended up confronting all of them for control of synthetic drug trafficking. The Sierra Santana brothers are identified as one of the producers of methamphetamine distributed in California.

When the Autodefensa movement began in Michoacan in 2014, the security commissioner, Alfredo Castillo, sent by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, incorporated members of Los Viagras into the special G250 unit to fight Los Knights Templar, achieving the capture of Servando Gomez Martinez, La Tuta.

Several members of Los Viagras were uniformed with the official government seal and even received Galil rifles, the same ones used by the Mexican Army and the police in other states, such as the capital.

However, as time went by, they returned to the criminal activities they were accustomed to. An example of this has occurred in Zihuatanejo.

Source: Proyecto Puente