EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican authorities are reporting the arrest of 16 people in connection to the murder of two Colombian artists last month.
Police found the bodies of rapper B. King (Byron Sanchez Salazar) and DJ Regio Clown (Jorge Herrera Lemus) on Sept. 17 on a highway outside Mexico City. An autopsy showed they bled to death from multiple cuts and stabs.
The two were last seen coming out of gym and getting into a vehicle the day after a performance, destination unknown.
On Thursday, the State of Mexico Attorney General’s Office said police identified the vehicle as a silver Mercedes Benz and located it on Sept. 24 in a building from where they rescued a kidnapping victim.
Authorities traced the vehicle to Jaime N., aka “Puga,” a reputed member of an organized criminal gang known as Union de Tepito, the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement. Police arrested him and four other people. The information they gleaned from them led them to an usurious loan operation in which customers were threatened or assaulted if they failed to pay, and to a designer-drug distribution network led by a man by the alias of “Maxi.”
The Attorney General’s Office said witnesses described Maxi as the only person authorized by Union de Tepito to distribute “tusi,” also known as pink cocaine, and “coco channel,” a mixture of cocaine and other drugs such as methamphetamine.
Mexican authorities say such drugs were being sold at the artists’ performances.
“The murder of the Colombian musicians is related to the commercialization of narcotics, a debt one of them had with a criminal organization, and a personal relationship with a man identified as ‘El Pantera’ (The Panther),” the Attorney General’s statement said.
The Panther isn’t among the detainees, but his alleged associate Christopher N., aka “El Comandante” (The Commander), is ; several of them are Colombians or Venezuelans, authorities said.
B. King had arrived in Mexico barely a few days prior to his mid-September performances. DJ Regio Clown had been in the country much longer, Mexican authorities said.
The governments of Mexico and Colombia have been in contact regarding the investigation since the bodies were found.
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