Aldama, Chihuahua
Gang conflict in the state of Chihuahua put a damper on holiday festivities in the region after four police officers assigned to a security detail for Ojinaga Mayor Lucy Marrufo Acosta were kidnapped by an armed group last Monday. The officers were traveling in a convoy with the mayor to Aldama, where she planned to attend a security briefing with regional law enforcement agencies. The victims were identified as Juan Carlos Vázquez Rivera, José Luis Cortez Ortiz, Miguel Ángel Núñez Chávez and Commander Ramiro Orozco Pineda.
The police officers were traveling together in a separate car from Marrufo when they were ambushed on the road just a few kilometers past the military checkpoint outside Ojinaga. They were forced out of their vehicle—described by police as a late-model Chevrolet pickup—and shoved into another, where they were held for more than 12 hours without contact with friends, family or authorities. (Marrufo was unharmed and was able to continue on to the meeting and back home to Ojinaga safely.)
The next morning, the State Attorney General’s Office located the four officers alive in Aldama. Attorney General César Jáuregui Moreno said that he would be collecting statements from the kidnapped men and conducting an official investigation. The office has not yet released any more information on the incident while that investigation is still underway.
In response, the state of Chihuahua canceled permits for a number of New Year’s celebrations in an attempt to keep people safe. Local media reported no further conflict between armed groups during heavy traffic at the Presidio Port of Entry just after the holiday.
Since the arrest of Sergio Menchaca Pizarro—a former leader of La Línea, a criminal organization active in the area between Aldama, Ojinaga and Manuel Benavides—in 2023, the typically-quiet border city has seen bursts of violence, mostly concentrated over a few bloody weeks in September 2024.
Menchaca was sentenced to life in prison in March 2025. In December, “El 04,” a former La Línea boss who had become leader of a splinter group called Los Cabrera, was arrested in Aldama. He was extradited to the United States, where he will face charges for his involvement in organized crime.
Presidio Mayor John Ferguson wished the best for his close colleagues across the river. “Presidio and Ojinaga are inexorably linked and generally share good and bad times,” he wrote in a statement on Facebook. “Right now, my hope is that we, the people of La Junta de los Ríos, will continue thinking and acting as one community, as we have so ably done over time immemorial.”