Officials found the remains of the four kidnapped municipal police officers on Wednesday morning. A team of cartel gunmen in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua kidnapped them on July 14. The four municipal police officers responded to a disturbance call at “La Presa El Tigre” — the Tigre Dam — when the group of cartel gunmen carried out the kidnapping.
Government authorities in the state of Chihuahua confirmed that the four municipal police officers from the Municipality of San Francisco de Conchos who were kidnapped on Sunday night were found murdered on Wednesday morning in a ravine known as Las Torres. The ravine is located in the municipality of Valle de Zaragoza, located in the southern section of the state near the city of Parral. According to initial media reports and Breitbart law enforcement sources, the four murdered officers displayed signs of torture and suffered gunshot wounds.
Government authorities in the state of Chihuahua launched an intense security operation in an attempt to locate the four kidnapped municipal police officers. The kidnapping occurred late Sunday night between 10:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., according to media reports and an article by Breitbart’s Cartel Chronicles.
The four municipal police officers responded to a disturbance call in two marked police trucks. Two of the officers were reportedly from San Francisco de Conchos and the other two from La Boquilla. The four officers were identified as Gustavo Ramírez Jiménez, Ángel Carrillo Rey, Salvador Omar Araiza Lozoya, and Ramón Horacio Galindo Castrellón
According to Breitbart’s local government sources, the area where the kidnapping occurred is plagued by cartel activity and related violence. The area is known to have heavy presence of cartel operators of “La Línea,” the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel, which is in a turf war against the Sinaloa Cartel and affiliated gangs due to the valuable smuggling routes the area provides to the north and U.S. drug market.
On Wednesday, Jaime Ramírez Carrasco, the municipal president of San Francisco de Conchos, requested the additional presence of state and ministerial police during a meeting with Chihuahua Attorney General César Augusto Peniche. The municipal president said that the citizens of the municipality are fearful to go out from their homes after Sunday’s kidnapping and subsequent murder of the four officers.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com.