NORTHEASTERN CHIHUAHUA — Last Thursday, seven men were apprehended by state and national police for their alleged involvement in a string of shootings in the Ojinaga area.
After receiving a tip about armed civilians, the Chihuahua Department of Public Safety (SSPE) and the federal Department of National Defense (SEDENA) located two white pickup trucks on a dirt road between Ojinaga and Manuel Benavides. The two trucks attempted to flee the scene and opened fire on the officers as they went.
The men were eventually arrested on foot after taking cover in the brush. In the aftermath, law enforcement also seized 15 rifles, 80 magazines, 1500 cartridges, six tactical helmets and two bulletproof vests.
Many people in the city of Ojinaga and the nearby towns of Manuel Benavides and Coyame del Sotol have been sheltering in place since the weekend of September 6, when six people were killed in a string of cartel-related shootings. A special task force of over 300 troops was deployed to Ojinaga on September 9, and the governor of Chihuahua, Maru Campos, visited the border city on September 11 to discuss the enhanced security measures.
While locals have been gradually returning to work and school, there has been widespread confusion on social media about how dangerous the situation in Ojinaga is — and the rest of the state of Chihuahua, which has suffered violent clashes from Juárez to the eastern border. The heavy military presence — including a helicopter with wailing sirens orbiting the city — serves as a constant reminder of the tragic string of events.
Last Thursday, State Attorney General César Jáuregui assured Chihuahuans that conditions were safe enough for all to enjoy Mexico’s annual Independence Day celebrations. A celebration was canceled in the small town of Coyame, but Ojinaga’s new mayor, Lucy Marrufo Acosta, decided to go ahead with a festival in the city plaza.
Not everyone was pleased with the announcement. “We call upon [the mayor] to cancel the Independence Day event and parade in the City of Ojinaga because of the uncertainty we are living through,” an anonymous group of local parents pleaded on Facebook. “Let’s avoid a tragedy.”
Fortunately, the celebration went as planned — with a smaller-than-usual but still enthusiastic crowd dancing to local bands.
Despite the many disruptions to daily life in the border city, the Presidio Port of Entry has remained open with enhanced security measures on the Mexican side of the bridge. The state of Chihuahua is currently under a travel advisory by the U.S. State Department, urging American citizens to “reconsider” travel due to an increased risk of “crime and kidnapping.”
In an interview with Israel Beltrán of Ojinaga’s BM Radio, Customs Officer Oscar Luis Prado Escobar said that the biggest disruption was to cattle crossings, which were temporarily suspended last week — a first in his tenure.
Prado said that widespread confusion had led many exporters to close and customs officials to skip work, leaving the area’s booming cattle business in limbo. He worried that some companies would route their exports through Juárez instead. “So much alarm and so many lies have already harmed the market here in Ojinaga,” he said. “It’s the first time something like this has happened to us and we hope it will be the last.”
Since last week’s issue of The Sentinel, state officials have been able to confirm a few details that were left up in the air. The names of two more of the men killed have been released: 33-year-old Lorenzo Moreno Aguilar; 47-year-old Mauricio Gonzalez Gonzalez; 33-year-old Jorge Luis Salas Blanco; 44-year-old Misael Peralta Longoria and Ofrael Olivas Guevara.
The violence is believed to be connected to La Línea, a cartel that operates within the “Ojinaga Triangle” between Coyame del Sotol and Manuel Benavides. Last summer, boss Sergio “El Menchaca” Pizarro was arrested by United States Customs and Border Protection walking along FM 170 near Fort Leaton south of Presidio.
Pizarro has since pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy and faces life in prison, as well as a money judgment of $2 million.
Mexican police identified the men arrested this week — although, as custom, using initials for the last part of their names — as: Jairo Emanuel V. C., Francisco Javier R. G., Jesús Valentín O. M., Jesús Valentín O. H., Felipe Salvador A. P. and Jesús Manuel R. O., all of Durango, and César Alejandro L.M. of Parral, Chihuahua. (While authorities have not yet drawn an explicit link between these men and La Línea, Durango is Menchaca’s home state.)
Jáuregui also doubled down on his comments from last week, quelling rumors that the violence in northeastern Chihuahua is spillover from the Sinaloa Cartel, which is currently waging war in the state capital of Culiacán. He instead believes that violence in the borderlands is an intra-cartel “purge.”
Sources from within the attorney general’s office told El Heraldo de Chihuahua that the two men whose bodies were dumped outside a funeral home in Ojinaga were not relatives of Menchaca, as some locals have speculated.