Eight alleged hitmen beheaded in western Mexico

The armed clash between two drug cartels in a rural area of ​​the western Mexican state of Michoacán left eight alleged hitmen dead and beheaded, local authorities reported this Friday.

The State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) informed Efe that the armed clash lasted all of Wednesday in various towns in the Aguililla municipality, in the Tierra Caliente region.

Agents of the FGE and the Forensic Medical Service (Semefo) deployed an operation in the municipality this Thursday, finding the bodies of eight alleged hitmen, wearing military clothing and signs of having carried firearms.

The bodies were together in the vicinity of the town of La Enramada and show several impacts from assault rifles.

The FGE opened an investigation folder and the main hypothesis is that the clash was carried out by the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and La Nueva Familia Michoacana cartels, the latter with their armed arms calling themselves Los Viagras and Los Blancos de Troya.

Inhabitants of Aguililla reported, on social media, that both criminal organizations used vehicles with “artisan” armor (monsters) to confront each other on rural roads and in various towns.

Aguililla is a territory in dispute by drug cartels for the planting of marijuana and the construction of synthetic drug laboratories, in addition to having significant reserves of iron ore and even gold.

This municipality also stands out for being the birthplace of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, and leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), identified as the most wanted drug trafficker in Mexico and the United States.

The cartel of La Nueva Familia Michoacana was made up of former assassins of the Knights Templar who infiltrated the defunct civilian self-defense groups and who currently control illicit activities in at least 45 municipalities in Michoacán.

Mexico closed in 2020 with 34,515 victims of intentional homicide, a figure just lower than the 34,648 cases in 2019, considered the most violent year in the contemporary history of the country.