They arrest a criminal group that smuggled migrants in Oaxaca

The Oaxacan activist Joaquín Galván reported that five members of a network dedicated to migrant traffickingweapons and drugs, which carried out operations from the Mixe-Zapotec mountains and up to Arizona, were linked to process.

The alleged traffickers they are confined in the federal social rehabilitation center number 13, located in Mengolí de MorelosMiahuatlán, Oaxaca.

According to the human rights defender of the Mixe area of ​​Oaxaca, the arrests of those involved in this criminal network were carried out three months ago.

“I didn’t want to make it public. until they were formally linked to the process because during that time different legal situations could have set them free. There are five main operators those who are detained for federal crimes, criminal association, carrying weapons for exclusive use, among others,” he said in a telephone interview with MILLENNIUM.

Information about a probable criminal network made up of migrants from Santo Domingo Tepuxtepec, Oaxaca, began to transcend from recorded violent events in Arizona, United States, where were killed three Oaxacan migrants.

In February 2022, the Mexican consulate general in Phoenix confirmed that three indigenous originally from Tepuxtepec, a community located in the northern mountains of Oaxaca, They were killed and their bodies abandoned in a vacant lot in that city.

On that occasion the victims were identified as Herminio and Isauro Martínez, as well as Abimael Jiménez, who just five months ago They had migrated to the United States to work in different jobs.

“From that situation came to light the complexities and networks of crimes that this criminal group had been committing not only in the United States, but also on the border and in Oaxaca”, he asserted.

Since then, Galván asked the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office, at that time headed by Arturo Peibert Calvo, investigate the existence of a gang dedicated to migrant trafficking from the Mixe-Zapotec area, dwhere the complainant is from.

“I started by demanding that Peimbert Calvo’s Prosecutor’s Office, who is no longer even a prosecutor, who ignored the issue. I had to take it directly to the Ministry of the Interior, where fortunately institutional collaboration was achieved“, remember.

Joaquín Galván considered that It was thanks to the federal protection mechanism with whom it counts as a defender of rights that institutional collaborations were established with the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (FGR), the National Guard and the Mexican Army to follow up on your complaintsone of which is recorded through the research folder FED/OAX/OAX/0001229/2023.

The activist stated that, together with elements of the National Guard and the Mexican Army, responsible for their custodyThey were generated different security activities in the Mixe area where he lives.

“I had quite well locatedThere are different main and strategic members of this network, and already with the help of these institutions Little by little we were able to find the key members of this trafficking network. Three are from Oaxaca, including the leader, and two are from the northern part of the country,” he commented.

What follows now is to work so that the FGR, like the United States police, can hold them responsible of each of the serious crimes in which the five involved have been involvedhe assured.

Galván also stated that the two main leaders of this criminal cell they sought to intimidate him. “They sent me to tell “Death is following you”, but we did not give them the taste of fear. Here we are and we will continue”

“It has been a job almost two years and although at first it did not find an echo in any agency, we tried not to give up until this was already judicialized. I feel very grateful and accompanied by the elements that have been with me to ensure my safety and the situation in general. With that This traffic network has been found, not only of people, but of weapons. Here in the area they handle a lot of glass, synthetic drugs that are very delicate,” he maintains.

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