A hitman, the new clue after the murder of former governor Sandoval

On a psychedelic tile floor, walked one of the suspects in the crime that shook Mexico last year.

The new clue to the murder of former Jalisco governor Aristóteles Sandoval is a woman dressed in a gray sweatshirt, distressed jeans and long blonde hair tied in a ponytail.

The Government of Jalisco offers a reward stamped on the blurred image of the young woman of one million pesos (just over $ 50,400) in exchange for any information to find her.

Almost a month after the three bullets that riddled the former president, impunity continues to win the battle in the land of drug trafficking.

The crime of Sandoval, murdered in the bathroom of a disco in Puerto Vallarta (Jalisco) on December 18, has put the State in a new extreme situation, it is the first former governor of Jalisco shot in cold blood in one of the jewels of the crown of Mexican tourism.

And while authorities have detained four people in recent weeks, none of them are directly linked to the crime: one faces a bribery charge and another three, for cover-up.

The new clue is behind the mysterious young woman with the blonde ponytail and another man, who was wearing a black T-shirt.

"The [alleged] hit man took advantage of the fact that the former governor went to the bathroom to shoot him three point-blank shots: the first in the back of the head, the second at the level of the heart and the third in the intestines," he reported this Thursday the newspaper

Reforma

on its front page, which quotes those in charge of the investigation.

Sources of the Prosecutor's Office consulted by this newspaper have rejected this version and have not wanted to provide more details, although they acknowledge that the suspect is in search and capture.

The Jalisco Prosecutor's Office progresses slowly with the details of one of the biggest political crimes in the country.

Press conferences to follow up on the new investigations are made through recorded videos without the option of asking questions from the press.

The case has overwhelmed the entity that has already been hit for years by the terror of the narco.

The most powerful cartel in Mexico is based in Jalisco, according to the DEA, the Nueva Generación cartel, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias

El Mencho

.

This criminal group has spread its tentacles throughout the country, but it maintains its main area of ​​influence in Jalisco and especially in Puerto Vallarta.

This tourist enclave of the Mexican Pacific coexists with two antagonistic realities.

The luxury of sports cars, an all-inclusive beachfront resort and also a place of entertainment for the country's great drug traffickers.

In Puerto Vallarta, the children and heirs of the drug trafficking empire of Joaquín

El Chapo

Guzmán were allegedly

kidnapped

at the hands of his rivals from the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel in 2016.

The images of the Prosecutor's Office on the possible material author of the murder is the only clue as to who was able to pull the trigger towards the neck of the ex-president.

The new line of investigation recalls another crime in a shopping center in the capital - in Plaza Artz, in July 2019 - also allegedly committed by a woman, against two Israelis.

The Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel had ordered and paid for this double homicide, authorities concluded.

Around 1:40 a.m. on December 18, Sandoval got up from the bar table to go to the bathroom.

They were waiting for him there and he was shot from behind.

When the politician's bodyguards picked him up to take him badly wounded to a hospital, rifle bursts were heard at the doors of the establishment.

A common drug tactic to send a message to the curious: "get out of here."

The former governor passed away a few minutes later.

Sandoval had been in that town since December 12 and had a security team, assigned by the State, of about 14 people that he shared with his family.

That night, around 10 p.m., he arrived at the Distrito 5 bar on Francisco Medina Ascencio avenue, the main avenue in the port, and met with a group of businessmen and friends.

Three hours later, he separated from the group and was attacked.

The prosecutor assured the local press that the ex-president was only accompanied by two bodyguards - one of them was injured - and a driver.

Shortly after the crime, the establishment took on the task of cleaning up any traces.

Images leaked by authorities show District 5 workers cleaning and removing some of the evidence from the crime scene, such as the carpet from the floor that led to the bathroom.

When the authorities arrived and the case became a scandal, Mexico had already come face to face with the power that organized crime maintains de facto.

In the midst of a political conflict with the federal government - locked in an almost daily battle between the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the current governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro (of the opposition party, Movimiento Ciudadano) - the entity faces crime. worst in its history with the just support of the national security forces. A state besieged by the drama of thousands of murdered and overflowing morgues with unidentified corpses.