Michoacán offered a reward for perpetrators of the massacre in San José de Gracia: 100 thousand pesos each

The Attorney General's Office (FGE) of Michoacán announced on Monday the offer of rewards for information that would allow the capture of six drug traffickers, alleged perpetrators of the murder of at least eleven rivals during a funeral in the town of San José de Gracia.

Adrian López Solis, prosecutor in Michoacán, specified that for each of the alleged hit men a reward of 100,000 Mexican pesos (USD 5,000) is offered.

The prosecutor reported that a total of 200 agents of the Army, the National Guard, the Michoacán Police and the Prosecutor's Office maintain an operational deployment — by land and air — in the borders of the states of Michoacán, Jalisco and Colima, in search of the six alleged drug traffickers and several accomplices who have not yet been identified, but who participated on 27 February in the murder and disappearance of the bodies of at least 11 rivals.

The fugitives were identified as Abel Alcantar Vallejo, alias el Viejón, the Sierra 8 or el Toro, a lieutenant of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and who would have led the massacre with his group of hit men.

The other five alleged hit men for whom a reward is offered are Jesús Adrián Mora Padilla, Cristian Alejandro Hernández Ortega, alias El Sapo; Antonio Gallegos Medina, alias La Bolachana; Jesús Eduardo Vallejo, alias El Chili, and Juan Manuel Barragán Cisneros, known as the Rush.

Before 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 27, a group of hit men from the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) cell led by Abel Alcantar Vallejo, alias El Toro or El Viejón, left in several vans from a hotel located a few kilometers from the municipal capital of Marcos Castellanos.

What motivated that mobilization of the people of Viejón was the arrival in San José de Gracia of Alejandro García, alias El Pelón, who had asked the senior CJNG officials for authorization to go and watch over his mother, who had died a day earlier of cirrhosis in the Hospital from Sahuayo, Michoacán.

El Viejón had already threatened to kill him if he set foot in San José de Gracia, but still El Pelón traveled with a dozen of his men in three vans to his mother's funeral.

The word spread faster than gunpowder. That same afternoon El Viejón left Tizapán el Alto aboard a two-seater RZR Polaris quad bike and headed to San José. He traveled 22 kilometers and arrived at the municipal seat 40 minutes before the events that shook the whole country. At the same time, his hit men left the Valle Dorado Hotel, located six minutes away, and approached the center.

Images obtained during the investigation confirmed that the people of Viejon were prepared for the attack from 14:56 hours. By then they had parked the vans and took up positions in the vicinity of Reforma Street, where the funeral was held. The next forty minutes were conspicuous by the absence of any municipal authority. No one reported that an operation had been deployed in the heart of the town.

In images obtained at 15:09 and 15:10, El Viejón appears —his key was Sierra 3—, talking on the phone and beckoning his men outside the funeral. Twenty minutes later El Pelón arrived at his mother's funeral and five minutes later he was killed four times in the head by his rival.

Before he died, the Pelón asked to make a repentance call, which was actually an order to call for reinforcements from his assassins. The leader's action had a fatal response. His men were placed against a wall with their hands on the back of their heads. The images of how they were shot turned around the country and ignited the indignation of the population.

Authorities in Michoacán confirmed on Monday, March 7, that they found at the site of the massacre biological material (remains and blood of at least 11 people) that was examined by experts.

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