The Mexican State Prosecutor’s Office arrested this Monday in Ecatepec, in the north of the territory, Juan Manuel Maya, alias The Mayaalleged leader of Los Mayas, a criminal group dedicated to the illegal trade of water pipes in various parts of the Mexican state, as reported by the agency in a statement published online. Authorities indicated that El Maya, whose age they did not reveal, was one of their priority targets.
It is the same criminal organization that calls itself We are Maya, we are strongalthough the authorities summarize the name as Los Mayas. The group carries out its water pipeline activities in three municipalities in the north of the State of Mexico, Ecatepec, Acolman and Coalcalco. The Public Prosecutor carried out the operation jointly with the support of the Secretariat of the Navy and the Municipal Police of Ecatepec. In it the authorities seized weapons, drugs, two vehicles – one of them luxury – and clothing similar to those of the official authorities themselves.
The arrest of the Mayans comes at a time of discontent among the inhabitants of the state of Mexico, the most populous territory in the country with 17 million inhabitants, where discontent over the lack of water has worsened in recent months. It has also been a land of proliferation of this type of illegal trade. Adding to the unrest in cities like Ecatepec is desperation in other places like Nezahualcóyotl, where residents and traders called a march last Friday to demand the revocation of the mandate of their mayor, Adolfo Cerqueda.
The municipality of Ecatepec is one of the alarming areas of the country. 84.4% of its inhabitants consider the place unsafe, according to September data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi). The data makes the city the second most concerned in the agency’s records, only after Culiacán, Sinaloa, which has 88.3%. Despite the high percentage in Ecatepec, the data presents an improvement compared to June, when the percentage of inhabitants who considered the place unsafe was 90.7% (Culiacán also raised its figure to 90.8%). The rest of the territory of the State of Mexico has not remained immune to crime. In the month of May – the latest record – the district recorded 116 murders, more than 1,500 robberies and more than 3,860 injuries.
