CJNG's El Jardinero has Journalist Tortured and Executed in Nayarit

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat 

Shortly after a group of journalists planned to release information on El Jardinero, a cartel leader within the CJNG, hitmen arrived at the journalists’ homes in Nayarit and abducted them. One of the journalists has now been found dead alongside two narco messages. 

Let's look at the information the journalists wanted to publish that made El Jardinero so nervous.

Quick Context

The Mexican state of Nayarit is located in the central west part of the country, as shown on the map below. It borders Jalisco, the home state of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). Nayarit is controlled by the CJNG and for the last five years it has gone largely uncontested by other cartel groups. 

The state is believed to be managed by the CJNG figure Audias Flores Silva, alias “El Jardinero”, who stands as one of the top five commanders within the cartel group. He has been named and sanctioned by the US, who are currently offering a $5 million dollar reward for information which leads to his capture.

El Jardinero is believed to be of a roughly equivalent rank as El RR, El 03, El 08, and El Sapo. All of the aforementioned commanders tend to lead campaigns in other states which aim to claim more territory for the CJNG. Jardinero is believed to be spearheading the current CJNG effort to gain territory in the state of Zacatecas, while still managing the plaza bosses within Nayarit.

The Violent Abductions

The journalist Luis Martín Sánchez Íñiguez drove his wife Cecelia to her relatives house in Acaponeta, Nayarit, on July 5, 2023. 

He dropped her off and returned home to finish some errands. He called Cecelia later that night to check in on her and tell her about his day. At around 8:43 pm, the couple cut their call short because of a power outage. 

That phone call was the last time Cecelia ever heard her husband's voice. At some point after their call, CJNG gunmen kidnapped Luis Sanchez. He was one of three journalists that the cartel group abducted that week in order to silence their reporting, which revealed new details about the regional CJNG leaders. Also kidnapped were journalists Jonathan Lora Ramírez and Osiris Maldonado De la Paz.

Word spread about the kidnappings and the police began looking into the three missing men. On July 8, 2023, the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) released a press release, which read as follows:

Last July 4, 2023, an investigation began due to a report of a missing person; a male by the name of Osiris "N". 

There is reliable information that at around 6:40 am on July 3, Osiris “N" left his home to go to work at an educational institution in Tepic. Since then, his whereabouts are unknown. It is known that the victim  previously worked as a journalist in digital media. 

Meanwhile, on July 7, 2023, there was news of the disappearance of the journalist Luis Martín "N", a correspondent of the newspaper La Jornada, who went missing on the night of July 5. 

Upon learning of these facts, the FGE took over the investigation and immediately activated the search protocols for missing persons, as well as the protection protocols for journalists and human rights defenders.

On the night of July 7, it was reported that Jonathan "N", also a journalist, was abducted from his home. According to the report, armed and hooded men arrived at his home, which is located in the municipality of Xalisco. 

The armed men violently broke into his home and took him out by force. They moved him into a gray minivan. An immediate search began to try to find his whereabouts, using the corresponding protocols.

On July 8, the location of a dead body was reported to the emergency phone line. The body was found in the town of El Ahuacate, located within the municipality of Tepic [in the state of Nayarit].

The body was found with signs of torture and two pieces of cardboard with a handwritten message. The dead body was identified by his family as one of the aforementioned men, named Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez. An autopsy has revealed that he was killed 24-48 hours prior to when his body was found [on July 8]. 

As for the journalist Jonathan "N", he has been found alive and in good health, according to the corresponding victim health and psychological condition protocols. 

Several lines of investigation are being looked into. The main motive being investigated is related to the journalism done by the victims. According to initial investigations, the victims collaborated on journalistic projects together. [...] 

The investigation continues with the purpose of finding the whereabouts of Osiris "N". 

Likewise, work is being done to obtain surveillance video footage from private properties and from the state surveillance cameras in order to identify the vehicle and/or the persons involved. Work is also being done to interview people who have direct or indirect knowledge of the abductions, and forensic evidence is also being assessed.

Other publications add more details about the abductions that were not included in the press release. La Jornada reports that it was Luis Sanchez’s wife, Cecelia, who reported him missing. 

SDP Noticias reports that the hitmen took Sánchez’s computer, hard drive, and cellphone while they were abducting him. Cecelia adds that his newspaper ID and his wallet were also missing and likely taken by the men.

So far, no images of the narco messages or the location where  Luis Sanchez was found have appeared online. Only a few pictures of crime scene investigators standing in the general area have been published.

Yesterday, it was reported that Osiris was found alive, presumably released by his captors. This means that now all three of the kidnapped men have been found, two of them alive and one brutally murdered.

The CJNG Motive

A number of leaked images of CJNG figures may be the primary motive behind the attacks on the journalists. 

On approximately July 5, 2023, Twitter user “Pedro9675068333” uploaded a photo of alleged CJNG commanders who attended a private concert of narco corrido singers. Pedro’s account was later suspended from Twitter and there are no webarchive versions of his profile, so any further details in the caption of the tweet are unclear. 

Later, a Twitter user alleged that a low-level CJNG guy known by the alias “El Kamikasi” had uploaded a photo of El Jardinero at a family party in private chats and it had been leaked. This alleged photo of Jardinero at this family party has not yet emerged online.

When the dead body of journalist Luis Sánchez was found, that same user claimed that Sánchez had recently “published about the leak of information on El Jardinero and his commanders.” This may imply that Luis Sánchez also received the photo of El Jardinero at the family party or the photo CJNG commanders seen at the concert.

SDP Noticias reported that one of the narco messages found on Sánchez’s dead body read “publiquen lo que quieran pero con la familia no se metan” or “publish what you want but do not mess with our families.” 

It's vital to emphasize that this line about “not messing” with their families is not consistent with the facts of what actually happened. 

To start off, it's unlikely that La Jornada, the newspaper that Luis Sánchez worked for, would ever publish unblurred images of Jardinero, let alone unblurred images of Jardinero’s family, because Mexican law largely prevents media from showing the faces of people who have not yet been convicted. 

If the journalists were in possession of said images, it's likely they would have used unofficial publications to release the images - and unofficial publications are read less often and taken less seriously by the general public. 

Furthermore, if El Jardinero only took issue with them potentially publishing images of his family members, then he could have sent a warning to the journalists, telling them to blur the faces of his family "or else".

He could have had his men steal the hard drives of the journalists and left them only with a single photo of himself, with everyone else in the family party photo cropped out. 

But that isn’t what happened. 

The actions of the CJNG hitmen were primarily focused on preventing the release of photos of Jardinero himself. 

The journalist was tortured, murdered, and left in a public space with a narco message because Jardinero wanted to intimidate other journalists into not publishing photos of him in the future. 

As mentioned earlier, the alleged photo of Jardinero at the family party has not shown up online yet but it seems that a number of people have the photo. If the photo is sent to me ( hearst.bb@protonmail.com ), I promise to post it online and I will do my best to bring attention to it.

El Jardinero’s Reports & Associates

If Jardinero gave the order for the journalists to be abducted, it's doubtful that he was directly involved in the kidnappings. The job likely fell to one of the men who report under him. Let’s review some of the men known to work under Jardinero and the CJNG figures who have been attached to him. 

One of Jardinero's direct reports is alleged to be Alejandro Carranza Ramírez, alias "Chito Cano".

Chito Cano was first recognized as a CJNG leader in January 2020, when he was working as a regional leader of the CJNG in the Huetamo Valley region, located near the border area of ​​the State of Mexico, Michoacán and Guerrero. To read more about Chito Cano's early criminal history, please see this previous story.

At some later point, Chito Cano focused less on Huetamo Valley and began primarily working under Jardinero, joining in on leading part of the CJNG campaign in Zacatecas.

There are, frustratingly, no known images of Chito Cano currently. There are, however, images of some of his men who chose to post videos of their faces while proudly wearing arm bands reading “Zacatecas Chito Cano CJNG.”  

There are, frustratingly, no known images of Chito Cano currently. To read more about Chito Cano's criminal history, please see this previous story. 

Another one of Jardinero's direct reports is alleged to be La Fresa (The Strawberry). Now, keep in mind that “Fresa” is a common alias in the cartel world. The Fresa in Nayarit is a different person then the La Familia Michoacana “Fresa” , in the State of Mexico (José Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga), and the “Fresa” in Michoacan (Alberto Espinoza Barrón). 

The Nayarit-based La Fresa first piqued the interest of the media when photos of his food donations, which were handed out to locals in Nayarit in November 2021, were widely shared online. The donations were labeled as coming from "Senor Fresa and his group," along with an image of a strawberry.

Some YouTube videos claim that Fresa is the same man who operated in Tamaulipas but it seems overall unlikely that it is the same man.

There is very little verifiable information on La Fresa. He is yet another Jardinero affiliate that has no known photos. Authorities have not named him in any press release as of the writing of this story. 

Instead, we're left with nothing more than local stories about La Fresa, such as one about him forcing an older man off his land in Nayarit but paying him roughly $22,000 USD in exchange for it. Fresa allegedly continues to send the older man gifts on holidays. 

One of Fresa’s men, who goes by the alias “R09” who has a narco corrido (a ballad praising a narco, commissioned by said narco) by Grupo Cross Norteno (lyrics linked here) but it says no real information about R09 or Fresa.  

Based on current rumors, it seems that La Fresa is the most senior CJNG figure that Jardinero left in charge of Nayarit and he may have the culpability in the torture and murder of the journalist.

An outdated Guacamaya document alleged that Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán, aliases “El Sapo” (The Toad) and “El 090”, used to be in charge of Nayarit, prior to Jardinero. He was first named and sanctioned by the US in May 2019. 

Some Twitter users have “updated” the Guacamaya chart to show that part of Nayarit is still controlled by El Sapo and the other part is controlled by Jardinero. Both El Sapo's men and El 08's Guerreros group have intermittently aided in the CJNG campaign in Zacatecas. 

There are some unverified social media rumors that Jardinero has a son named Kevin, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

A Lack of Genuine Interest 

So where does this leave us? In a frustrating spot, where there is both a lot of public attention on the murdered journalist but very little genuine interest in naming the culprits. 

Many international publications, such as the Associated Press (via The Guardian & CBS), BBC, Al Jazeera, and Reuters have picked up on the story about Luis Sánchez being kidnapped and murdered. It adds to the larger narrative about how dangerous it is for journalists who live in Mexico. 

But what has not been picked up on is who he was writing about prior to his death (El Jardinero) and who controls Nayarit, the state the murder happened in (El Jardinero). 

International coverage of the event has not even bothered to mentioned the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) in relation to the murder - even though it is the only group believed to currently operate in Nayarit and has been cited as such in multiple reputable sources, including the Mexican government’s own intelligence. 

Any modicum of research into the state would have shown that the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación was deserving of, at the very least, a brief mention in their articles. But instead, we get from these international media companies, a litany of bland articles which mention the same statistics on violence against journalists in Mexico that are always mentioned. 

The journalists in Mexico are facing a real and present danger from narcos when they write, along with a repressive set of Mexican laws which forbid the showing of faces and the printing of full names of cartel figures prior to them being convicted. Their inability to write fully on these topics is, in many ways, understandable. 

However, the international journalists who are paid to report on these topics should be taking full advantage of their safety from cartel retribution and their freedom from Mexico’s legal system, and put in some degree of research when covering the murder of a Mexican journalist, not if it happens - but when it happens next time. 

Special thanks to Enojon and Char for all their help. 

Sources: FGE Press Release, Reuters, EME EQUIS Sandra Edith Zuñiga Cervantes Tweet 1, Tweet 2, DominioPublico, SDP Noticias, The Guardian, CBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, Milenio, MexicoViolence.org, ACLED Data, Union Jalisco, Radio Formula, El Sapo Sanctions, KMPH

Two Charts Sources: Official Guacamaya Leaked Version, User Revised Version

Further Reading 

La Familia Michoacana’s Fresa Had Journalist Alan García Aguilar Killed

Both CJNG and CAF Accused of Murdering Tijuana Journalist