EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police have arrested several men they say are responsible for recent high-profile crimes that stunned residents in the past two months in Juarez, Mexico.
Those include the Aug. 11 killing of two municipal police officers and a La Linea cartel leader for whom they allegedly were providing security, and the Sept. 19 quintuple murder in the Anapra neighborhood near the U.S. border that included two teenaged victims, Chihuahua state police Chief of Staff Luis Aguirre said on Monday.
Men only identified as Jose Uriel M.F., 26; Jesus Roman C.H., 21; and Ricardo N., 22, where taken into custody late last week at a home in west Juarez after state police officers saw them in the Lazaro Cardenas neighborhood getting off an SUV carrying guns, which are illegal in Mexico.
Aguirre said the officers pursued and subdued one of the suspects inside the home, where they found a stash of 38 guns and rifles and three migrants being held for ransom.
The migrants from the Mexican states of Tlaxcala and Puebla were rescued from captivity and received medical attention, Aguirre said.
“These events confirm how dangerous these people now in custody and the criminal cell (they belong to) are. This is a major blow to a criminal structure that was generating violence in Juarez,” Aguirre said.
He did not say who the men worked for, but sources in Juarez told Border Report news partner ProVideo the suspects are members of La Empresa. The transnational criminal organization has been linked by U.S. authorities to migrant stash houses in southern New Mexico.
Aguirre said the arrest of the three was part of a citywide sweep dubbed Guerrero Negro (Black Warrior). It came about after residents reported a murder in the Oasis Revolucion neighborhood and police tracked the suspect vehicles using video cameras.
A gray Hyundai Tiburon and brown Chevrolet Suburban were linked to other crimes and to the home in the Lazaro Cardenas neighborhood where the other three were located, Aguirre said. The police sweep led to a total of 10 arrests and the seizure of 45 illegal firearms.
La Empresa originated in Juarez as an enforcer group for La Linea, the remnants of the old Juarez cartel. Made of members of several local gangs, law enforcement officials on both sides of the border say La Empresa now operates independently.
ProVideo contributed to this report.
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