Cotija, the Mexican town where 2 former mayors were murdered and drug traffickers have control

For some years now, organized crime has established itself in the state of Michoacán and has come to control everything, including the authorities themselves under threat of death if they do not collaborate with them.

An example of this can be seen in the municipality of Cotija, where two former mayors have been murdered this year, the last victim being Aurelio Santos Contreraswho died in an armed attack last Monday.

According to the State Prosecutor’s Office, the former municipal president, who was in office from 2018 to 2021, He was ambushed by an armed group when he was leaving his house.

Santos Contreras again sought the mayoralty in the last electoral process, but lost the elections. On June 6, four days after the vote, he published a message on his social networks in which he alluded to an incident of violence of which he was a victim, according to the newspaper El Universal.

“I thank all my friends and family for their concern. “I feel very well, thank God,” he wrote in one of his statuses, accompanied by a photograph in which he is sitting, while using his cell phone.

The other cases

This is not the first crime against a former mayor of Cotija, since Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa She was murdered on June 3, in the heart of the municipality.

Previously, the former municipal president was kidnapped by hitmen on September 23, 2023, when she was in the city of Zapopan, Jalisco, but she was released three days later.

After her death, the Prosecutor’s Office reported that the murder and kidnapping of Yolanda Sánchez would have been perpetrated by hitmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), who when they kept her in captivity made various requests that were not revealed by the authorities.

In addition to these two crimes, on March 7 he was kidnapped Arnulfo García Figueroawho served as councilor in Cotija, and whose whereabouts are unknown until now.

But violence is not limited to rulers who left power, since Juan Pablo Aguilar Barragáncurrent elected mayor of Cotija, requested on September 19 a leave of absence from office for 59 days for personal reasons, although rumors in the municipality point to alleged threats from organized crime.

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