Chueco's Uncle Is The Local Chief of Police, Multiple Police Departments Disarmed, Chihuahua

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In Chihuahua, cartel hitmen were caught carrying firearms that belonged to the local police department - firearms that the police department never noted as lost or stolen.

The FGE began looking into how this could have occurred and it led them to discovery that the police director of Urique is also El Chueco's uncle. And now two police departments have had their firearms removed by Army soldiers.

Maguarichi Police Department 

This weekend, as news publications focused on the capture of the US’s most wanted man, Rafael Caro Quintero, it's easy to imagine that Mexico’s most wanted man, El Chueco, was thankful that his name no longer dominated headlines - at least temporarily.

On July 14, 2022, the state Attorney General’s Office informed the municipal police department of a small town in Chihuahua, that they were opening a corruption investigation into the whole department. 

They chose to announce this to the municipal police of Maguarichi by having Army soldiers and State Police officers raid the department’s firearms arsenal in a surprise operation. They seized all 23 firearms from the department. According to the FGE, none of the Maguarichi police officers had a state license to carry a firearm. 

The state Attorney General’s Office (FGE) is investigating the Maguarichi police for possible corruption and collusion with the local Sinaloa Cartel groups.  All the weapons were taken to the state capital, where they will undergo ballistics tests to determine whether or not they were used in a criminal act. Meanwhile, the state police and federal forces will be in charge of security in Maguarichi.

So, how did this come about and how does this relate to Chueco?

Cartel Hitmen Carrying Registered Police Firearms 

As previously reported, Chueco’s cousin is one of the 13 men who have been arrested so far as part of the government search operations of the Sierra Tarahumara region. A number of new details about these arrests have emerged since it was originally covered. 

Firstly, the cousin’s full name - César Iván Portillo Pillado - has been released and covered by newspapers like El Universal. The release of a full name prior to any criminal conviction is a rarity due to certain Mexican laws. 

Secondly, when soldiers tried to detain César Portillo for illegally carrying a firearm, César told the soldiers he had the weapon because he was a Urique municipal police officer. When soldiers asked César to produce identification to verify that he was a police officer, he was unable to, so he was detained and the firearm was seized. FGE agents later confirmed that César was not registered as a municipal police officer as he claimed. 

However - according to the findings of the FGE as reported by Milenio newspaper- the firearm that César was carrying did, in fact, belong to the Urique municipal police department. They also found that one of the other 13 men arrested was carrying a Urique municipal police firearm. 

Neither firearm was marked as lost or stolen in the police department records, ruling out two potential explanations for how the firearms ended up in the hands of two criminals. 

"It is very important for us to legally determine what happened with those weapons," emphasized Gilberto Loya, Chihuahua’s head of Public Security.

Chueco's Uncle & the Urique Police Department 

This discovery led the FGE to launch a new investigation, this one into the Urique municipal police department along with the police departments of all the surrounding areas. Their first finding: most of the officers in the Urique department had not passed the anti-corruption screenings.

These screenings, called “las pruebas de control y confianza” or control and confidence tests, are part of a series of requirements that all municipal officers must meet in order to be entered into the state registry and be given a license to legally carry a firearm as an officer of the law.  

"A review of the personnel and the weapons they had in Urique was carried out, and from there we realized that a large number of personnel did not have the minimum requirements necessary to carry weapons," said Gilberto Loya.

This led the Urique police arsenal to be seized by soldiers and state officers on July 6, 2022. Overall 56 firearms, 41 long-barrel firearms and 15 short-barrel firearms, were taken.

"They could not have weapons for 50 policemen when only a little less than 20 [officers] complied with the requirement to carry firearms", clarified Gilberto Loya.

Any firearm that was assigned to an officer who was not accredited would be returned to the officer if they passed the required tests (among them the anti-corruption screening) in the 15 days following the firearms seizure. 

A number of Urique officers are currently under investigation to determine if they are colluding with cartel groups. The firearms seized went through ballistic forensics and it was determined that they were not used in the murder of the two Jesuit priests and the tour guide in Cerocahui.

Their next discovery about the Urique police: the police director in Urique, Samuel Pokare Pokare, is El Chueco’s uncle. 

The exact way in which he is related to Chueco, whether it's through Chueco’s mother’s or father’s side of the family is unclarified. Samuel Pokare Pokare notably does not share a last name with Chueco, whose full name is currently believed to be José Noriel Portillo Gil. 

However, it is known that Director Samuel Pokare is Chueco’s uncle; a fact which was made public on July 15, 2022, as reported by sources like Milenio, La Opción, and Omnia, in a story that would have gained more attention if it had not been eclipsed by the news that Rafael Caro Quintero was arrested that same day. 

And then came the revelation that in 2019, officer Samuel Pokare did not pass the anti-corruption screenings. 

According to the rules set forth by the state, this should have automatically disqualified Samuel Pokare from being able to become director of police. However state authorities (who the current administration say were a part of the previous administration) allowed Pokare to still be appointed to the position because of “the lack of staff and representatives who want to cover this function.”

As an aside, the Urique City Council is currently being “economically sanctioned”, or rather their budget is being withheld by the Chihuahuan Institute for Transparency because the City Council refuses to report who is in the municipal cabinet, their salary and their financial asset declarations. 

Municipal Police Across the State Overall 

In the state of Chihuahua there are 5,975 municipal police officers. 75% of these officers are located in the five largest cities, leaving only 25% of the municipal police force assigned to cover 62 municipalities. 

There are at least 12 municipalities in Chihuahua that do not have their own preventive police officers, and even more municipalities that do not have the necessary training, equipment or certification within their police departments. 

Governor Maru Campos Galván warned that the state will intervene in all municipalities where there are no security agents, adding "We are not going to stand idly by if there are no police officers in the municipalities. And let it be very clear for organized crime, and for those who make life impossible for the people of Chihuahua: We are not going to stand idly by. We are going to do what we have to do.”

The governor said that if the state needs to take over the security of even more municipalities, the Ministry of Finance would make the budgetary adjustments needed to hire more state level police officers and the State Investigation Agency (AEI). 

Shortly after, the head of Public Security, Gil Loya, announced that there is an open call to recruit 300 new state police officers. 

Maguarichi Police Sources: Milenio, El Diario de Chihuahua Article 1, Article 2, Noticieros Televisa, TV Azteca

Urique Police Sources: La Opción, El Heraldo Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, El Diario de Chihuahua, Radiza, Por La Libre, Omnia, Codigo 13 Parral, El Universal