The investigations to clarify who is behind the murder of the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, Carlos Manzo have yielded new results. The Security Cabinet reported this Wednesday that it had identified and arrested Jorge Armando ‘N’ as the alleged mastermind of the murder that occurred during the Day of the Dead celebrations in his municipality. The Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, announced that the prisoner is one of the leaders of the criminal group that planned the attack.
Jorge Armando ‘N’ will be investigated for ordering the attack on Manzo, who had raised his voice against the terror regime of organized crime in Michoacán and had called for greater support from the state and federal governments on security matters. The mayor’s bodyguards managed to kill his assassin immediately after he shot up to six times at the mayor’s body in a central square, surrounded by his bodyguards and the crowd accompanying him. The killer was Víctor Ubaldo, a 17-year-old teenager from Paracho, who, according to the State Prosecutor, Carlos Torres, was addicted to methamphetamine and had left home a week before the attack.
The investigations also identified the other two attackers who accompanied Ubaldo that night, Fernando Josué ‘N’ and Ramiro ‘N’, whose bodies were found lifeless on the Uruapan-Paracho highway. Prosecutor Torres stated that Ramiro hired his two companions and was in telephone contact with a certain ‘Lic’, who coordinated the attack remotely. Harfuch assured that the suspects were linked to a criminal cell, affiliated with a criminal group from Michoacán affiliated with the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), which has considerable influence in the state and disputes territory with local mafias.
Authorities had already linked Ubaldo to the CJNG. However, they did not clarify how the group had recruited the minor or who it had liaised with to plan the 8pm attack. at the Candle Festival, a public event in Uruapan. Harfuch explained that security cameras were used to track Ubaldo’s movements that afternoon. “Witnesses are being questioned and videos are being requested from convenience stores in the area. No line of investigation has been ruled out to clarify this cowardly act, which took the mayor’s life,” he said. It took authorities several days to identify the teenager.
