MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas – Local news outlets are silent after the murder of a former city secretary in a crime that appears to have political and organized crime links.
Over the weekend, Tamaulipas state authorities discovered the body of Luis Miguel Fuentes inside a black Cadillac Escalade on the side of the highway that connects Matamoros with Valle Hermoso. The victim was reported missing by relatives one day prior. Police received a 911 call about an abandoned luxury vehicle before they discovered the crime scene.
The victim’s body had been thrown over the center console with his pants pulled down. Tamaulipas law enforcement officials tell Breitbart Texas that the cause of death was a cranial fracture from blunt force trauma.
Fuentes, a businessman in Tamaulipas, was previously the Matamoros city treasurer during the administration of Leticia Salazar (National Action Party-PAN) from 2013 to 2016. Since then, he was active in various business associations. Most recently, Fuentes was linked to high ranking operators with Mexico’s current ruling party, MORENA, leading authorities to believe at least in the initial stages that the murder was political. Authorities also said Fuentes had ties to members of a Gulf Cartel faction.
News outlets in Mexico have not covered the case. In Matamoros, journalists have largely stopped reporting on cartel violence.
Fuentes is not the only former Matamoros official from the Salazar regime to be linked in some way to organized crime. In 2018, Tamaulipas state authorities arrested Luis Alfredo Biasi, who worked as the Social Development Secretary. Authorities arrested Biasi on state charges for organized crime and extortion, alleging he targeted local import/export businesses to “help them” with government paperwork. Almost at the same time, Biasi faced a federal investigation after some of his employees were arrested trying to smuggle 1,100 bulletproof vests into Mexico.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas and Tony Aranda from Nuevo Leon.