“Socalj” for Borderland Beat
From a Proceso Article
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In a joint operation, state and federal corporations arrested eight active municipal police officers in Colima, including a woman, on charges of leaking information to the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), the State Coordinating Board for the Construction of Peace and State Security reported.
Seven of the detained officers worked as agents of the Public Security Directorate of the state capital, while the remaining one was a member of the security escort group of the municipal president of Villa de Álvarez, Esther Gutiérrez Andrade, announced the head of the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), Bryant Alejandro García Ramírez.
“The necessary evidence was collected,” he added, “and when we finally had the identity of the people, we requested the arrest warrant and it was obviously granted and has already been executed.”
García Ramírez said that while the deadline for the judge to determine the legal status of the detainees runs, the FGE will give notice of the case to the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (FEMDO), dependent on the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, so that they can also pursue the case for organized crime.
The Colima prosecutor said that “the criminal group that we were able to identify that they were linked to (the detained police officers) is the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and obviously it is the use of the information that they carried out: they passed on information, some of them manipulated the cameras (of the municipality of Colima), they made false reports or if there were going to be arrests they would go and say that they were not there so that they would be let go.”
In short, Bryant Alejandro García added, “these people were carrying out a conglomerate of criminal activities and they will obviously be tried for these acts, and we will be waiting for the prosecution, for what the judge decides in the next few hours.”
According to the State Peace and Security Board, the arrest of the eight police officers was achieved after investigation, intelligence and coordination work between the FGE and institutions such as the Public Security Secretariat (SSP) of the Government of the State of Colima, the Coordination, Control, Command, Communication, Computing and Intelligence Center (C5i), the Navy Secretariat (Semar), the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena), the National Guard (GN) and the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (FGR).
The arrest took place on Thursday morning at around 6:30 a.m. in compliance with arrest warrants against these elements, where 5 of them were arrested at the Colima Municipal Police Headquarters; 2 in the vicinity of their homes and 1 at the Villa de Álvarez Municipal Police Headquarters.
For its part, the Municipal Police of Colima issued a statement in which it offered its collaboration with the authorities responsible for investigating the detained officers, arguing that “since the beginning of the municipal administration there has been full willingness to coordinate with all security corporations and armed forces.”
He said that the safety of citizens “is our top priority and there will be zero tolerance for any criminal conduct in which any of our officers may be involved.”
However, the municipal corporation also regretted that “in this operation there was no coordination between the State Attorney General’s Office and any municipal authority, since the way it was carried out generated tension between the corporations and at some point even put the integrity of people at risk, which is unacceptable.”