HomeNewsBriefMexico Arrests Local Criminal Boss, 'Police Protector'
BRIEF

Mexico Arrests Local Criminal Boss, 'Police Protector'

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 20 MAY 2011 BY PATRICK CORCORAN EN

Mexican authorities pulled off a double coup in the violence-addled state of Morelos, arresting a police commander on accusations of helping the South Pacific Cartel just hours after picking up a local boss for the gang.

As Excelsior reports, the army arrested South Pacific leader Victor Manuel Valdes Arteaga, alias "El Gordo Varilla," early Thursday morning. During his interrogation, Valdes Arteaga apparently said that Juan Bosco, the director of operations in municipal police department in the state capital of Cuernavaca, had been protecting his network. This which led to Bosco’s arrest.

The South Pacific Cartel grew out of the fractured remnants of the organization belonging to Arturo Beltran Leyva, who was killed in December 2009. It has been engaged in territorial battles both in Morelos, which lies an hour or so south of Mexico City, and in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco. Violence in both regions has spiked as a result.

Valdes Arteaga was the second-ranked member of the group, according to Excelsior, behind only Raul Diaz Roman, a former director of public security in Cuernavaca. He is also the immediate boss of Jesus Radilla Hernandez, who stands of accused of orchestrating the murder of Juan Francisco Sicilia, the son of a famous author, and six others in late March.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

JALISCO CARTEL / 5 APR 2022

The deaths of 20 people at a clandestine fight in Mexico’s state of Michoacán has revealed how a fairly small…

FENTANYL / 22 OCT 2021

Fentanyl continues to wreak havoc on both sides of the US-Mexico border, as Mexican security forces continue to seize the…

EXTORTION / 28 JAN 2022

Cartels are known for shakedowns of avocado growers, but lime farmers have been unnoticed victims of similar extortion schemes in…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…