He lured women through the social network Facebook with job offers, quoted them in public places, kidnapped them and killed them.
This is how the alleged femicide Greek Román, 38, who is accused of at least seven murders in Mexico, operated, according to the Undersecretary of Public Security, Ricardo Mejía.
The man, originally from Córdoba, in the state of Veracruz, was arrested along with a woman in San Juan del Río, Querétaro.
"There are at least seven cases of murders of women in which this person could be involved," Mejía said.
It is not clear that he already has a lawyer, The Associated Press news agency said.
The victims lived in Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo and Morelos, where he allegedly hooked them with false job offers.
[The body of Debanhi Escobar will be exhumed to clarify the cause of his death]
Mexican authorities said they have surveillance camera footage from two states showing the man meeting victims in public places and, in one case, taking a victim away on a motorcycle.
The most recent case linked to the suspect was the murder of
Viridiana Moreno,
a 31-year-old woman in Veracruz state, after she went for a job interview last month.
“He left his house in [the town of] Cardel, Veracruz, and went to the Welcome hotel to attend a supposed job interview that he had arranged with someone on Facebook,” Mejía said.
"After that she disappeared," added the security officer.
Moreno, mother of a 10-year-old boy, was studying Physical Education, and saw on Facebook a job offer as a hotel receptionist for a salary of 1,800 pesos a week, "plus a punctuality bonus," according to the newspaper El País.
The young woman left her house on May 18 in the direction of the Welcome Hotel for a job interview and since then her family has not seen her again.
His name became public thanks to the fact that his family, after his disappearance, organized demonstrations, roadblocks and takeovers of booths to demand police action.
Days later, the remains of a woman were found in plastic bags in the community of Chachalacas;
The authorities said that it was Moreno, but her family rejected the opinion and announced an independent expert opinion, according to El Universal.
Eduardo Hernández, the woman's cousin, told El País that it is not possible to be certain of the identity until laboratory tests are done.
"Yesterday we had nothing and now we even have the culprit and it turns out that he is a serial killer
," he said suspiciously.
The family assures that it has not had access to the fingerprint evidence that the Secretary of Security claims to have, nor has it been able to find the missing remains of the body 15 days after its disappearance.
Morelos prosecutors said Thursday that the arrested suspect had killed
Evelyn Afiune,
a 22-year-old student looking for work.
Local activists said the student was lured to meet the suspect at a downtown Cuautla coffee shop on March 24 by a Facebook ad about a job or items for sale.
After talking for a few minutes,
he allegedly took her to a hair salon, where she was apparently killed.
Three days later, her body was found, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
"The victim had been beaten, sexually abused and strangled," the agency said.
Protests also broke out after his disappearance.
Both women disappeared after meeting the suspect in public places with many people around, they willingly accompanied him, apparently convinced by the job offers.
It's unclear if the victims' bodies were dismembered, but prosecutors in both states said they found their remains in "several places" or in various plastic bags.
Morelos prosecutors said the man had a long chain of aliases, including Juan Carlos Gasperin and Roman Villalobos Griego, and had been wanted on rape charges in 2012.
Authorities said he may also have been implicated in cases in the states of Querétaro and Puebla.
The desperation of women in need of work in small Mexican provincial towns and Mexico's largely shadow economy provide a fertile field for bogus job offers.
On Thursday, the authorities reported that they had rescued two girls, ages 13 and 14, who had been tricked into job offers in Jalisco.
They were found with a suspected kidnapper at a bus station in Mexico City.
