The terror of La Familia Michoacana, the long-standing Mexican cartel that still seeks to impose its lead law

Members of La Familia Michoacana in a screenshot of a video with which they announced their arrival in Milpa Alta, in Mexico City, on December 4. RR.

H.H.

The image of the dead little monkey went around the world: not every day you see a lifeless monkey in a bulletproof vest on the floor, as if he had just dropped his rifle, fallen in combat.

Not even in Mexico.

The irony of the hitman monkey is that his image eclipsed what happened, the umpteenth shootout in Tierra Caliente in the State of Mexico, which this time left 11 dead, all civilians, presumed members of the criminal group.

They talked about the dead, yes, but as they have been talking in the country for years, with statistical logic, assuming that, as things are, it was part of everyday life.

Thus, the photos of the monkey with a vest distracted from some details of the event.

It happened on June 14 in Texcaltitlán, the gateway to Tierra Caliente, a region shared by the State of Mexico, Michoacán and Guerrero.

The State of Mexico Prosecutor's Office spoke of an exchange of shots with hitmen, who, according to the agency, attacked first.

He mentioned his wounded and the confiscated weapons, vehicles and other belongings.

Authorities later released a name on the air, La Familia Michoacana.

The Michoacan Family again.

A spider monkey clad in a bulletproof vest who was killed in the confrontation.RR.

H.H.

Overshadowed by the criminal activity and the media skills of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and its satellite groups, La Familia Michoacana returns these days to the front pages due to the aggressiveness they have shown in their recent attacks.

Especially active in the State of Mexico and Guerrero, its members demonstrate surprising audacity, the enduring lead law that has subjected the region for more than a decade.

To the massacres and attacks we must add its possible expansion.

A few weeks ago, a group of armed men chanting their initials announced their arrival in Milpa Alta, the rural south of Mexico City.

Authorities have monitored the group's activities for years.

The government has on its target lists its leaders, the brothers José Alfredo and Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, a follow-up that can be seen in detail in Army documents, thanks to the massive hack carried out a few months ago by the Guacamaya group.

The United States Government also points them out.

In November, the Treasury Department of that country put them on its blacklist.

Despite everything, The Family prevails.

The Texcaltitlan confrontation was just the latest in a series of ambushes and brawls carried out in the State of Mexico by the criminal group, one of the longest-lived in the country, a brand that has outlived its peers for generations, such as Los Zetas. .

Nearby, in Coatepec Harinas, hitmen from the criminal group had assassinated 13 state and ministerial police officers from the State of Mexico months earlier.

Also at that time, two other ministerial police officers had been shot to death in Texcaltitlan itself, in an ambush that also left six officers injured.

The list of clashes is extensive and responds to a war that the criminal group -or one of its associated cells, present in the south of the State of Mexico- declared to the State Prosecutor's Office in mid-2020, apparently for the capture of one of its leaders, a war announced on posters hung in municipalities in the area.

The battle seems to have ended on the day of the monkey, at least in that area.

In recent months, the battlefront has moved some 200 kilometers to the south, in the same region of Tierra Caliente, but now in Guerrero.

Slide of a document leaked by Guacamaya in October of this year about the surveillance at the command of La Familia.

As is the case with the CJNG, it is difficult to define the radius of action of La Familia Michoacana and the cohesion between the groups that act under its name.

In the case of the CJNG, its acronyms appear everywhere, without often meaning its presence in one area or another.

Academics speak of a franchise regime, like McDonald's, in which the group lends its initials in exchange for something.

It can also happen that other gangs take over without permission, trying to take advantage of the terror that just the name inspires.

Although there are similarities, the case of La Familia is different.

The group was born in Michoacán at the turn of the century, as a response to the violence of Los Zetas, who were beginning to expand their tentacles outside the northeast.

Its leader, Nazario Moreno, put together a very particular organization, with its bible, its ethical code, the idea repeated a hundred times in later years that its only reason for existing was the good of the people.

It may once have been, or some of its members really thought so, but over the years they have shown themselves to be a group of unscrupulous murderers, traffickers and thugs.

The death and capture of Moreno and other leaders brought down La Familia Michoacana in their home state.

The heirs adopted other names, in the case of The Knights Templar, also indebted to a religious, mystical logic.

But in Guerrero and the State of Mexico, the brand endured.

The connection between La Familia de Michoacán and that of Guerrero and the State of Mexico is not clear, but large regions of these last two States became a practically impregnable fiefdom for them.

In all these years, the authorities have only captured one of its important leaders, José María Chávez Magaña, alias El Pony, in 2014. Then and now, the Hurtado Olascoaga brothers continue to do and undo as they please.

A member of Pueblos Unidos, a group of armed civilians to prevent cartel access to some municipalities in Michoacán. Cristopher Rogel Blanquet (Getty Images)

With Lopez Obrador

In the last two years, La Familia Michoacana has occupied part of the concerns of the Government's security cabinet.

At the end of October, federal authorities searched properties allegedly linked to the group after the latest massacres.

At the beginning of the month, hitmen had murdered about twenty people in San Miguel Totolapan, now in Guerrero, including the mayor and his father.

Last weekend, members of the gang massacred seven residents of a community in Coyuca, 50 kilometers from there.

In the searches, the agents were looking for clues that would bring them closer to the Hurtado brothers, targets of the Executive for a decade.

Apparently, at least one of the houses searched in Guerrero belonged to one of the brothers, José Alfredo, alias La Fresa.

In his room were stuffed wild animals, including a lion.

In other houses they found antelopes, a Bengal tiger, a lake with flamingos... But not a trace of them.

Another slide from the leaked document.

Thanks to the leak of documents from the Ministry of Defense made by the Guacamaya group a couple of months ago, it is possible to trace the government's concern regarding the group before October.

In November 2020, for example, at a meeting of the Intelligence Fusion Center (Cerfi) Centro, an Army intelligence agency, its leaders updated the list of targets for the area.

Of the 13 priority, one was Johnny Hurtado, alias El Pez, and another Juan Moreno Salgado, alias Jabón.

The Army locates the second in Sultepec, in the State of Mexico, near Texcaltitlan, and the first in Arcelia, Guerrero, next to San Miguel Totolapan.

Of the 13, the military considered three to be more important than the rest.

One was Soap,

In a document entitled "Reports of Coordination Boards carried out in 2020" in the "Centro" area, the concern of a large part of the region's commanders for the criminal group is once again observed.

There, the Cerfi Centro points out, for example: "Information has been shared on the mobility and photographs of members of the criminal organization "La Familia" (...) The mobility of Juan Moreno Salgado, 'Jabón', Chief of Plaza de Sultepec, State of Mexico, Artemio Martínez Castrejón, 'La Mala', Chief of Plaza de Tenancingo, State of Mexico, and Luis Gómez, 'Kaliman', in charge of entering Morelos from the State of Mexico, who are generators of violence and targets agreed with the territorial commands”.

Local vigilantes in San Juan Nuevo (Michoacán), who organized after a murder allegedly carried out by La Familia Michoacana, in January 2018.Juan José Estrada Serafín (Cuartoscuro)

In another document, entitled “Meeting and Summary of Results 2020″, Cerfi reported the momentary arrest at a checkpoint, in March of that year, of Adita Hurtado Olascoaga, sister of La Fresa and El Pez.

She “she was traveling in the company of her son.

Without finding signs of criminal activity, we let her continue on her path, ”says the document.

That same report also explained how the arrest of one of the lieutenants of alias Jabón, José Dámaso Alpizar, "head of the Texcaltitlan plaza" had occurred.

El Cerfi recounts that he provided the Army's Iguala Special Command with information on Alpizar's mobility.

Based on it, the military installed checkpoints in Amatepec, State of Mexico, somewhat south of Sultepec and Texcaltitlán.

On June 10, 2020, the military intercepted a black Ford Lobo pickup truck, in which three men were traveling.

One of them turned out to be Alpizar.

In the truck, the military also found three long weapons, a pistol, and cartridges.

Alpizar was arrested.

His capture would have provoked the penultimate offensive of La Familia Michoacana, that of the State of Mexico, described as a war by the criminal group.

Little is known about why the last one began, directed against civilians and public officials, already in Guerrero.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS México

and receive all the key information on current affairs in this country