Latest news with #OmarGarcíaHarfuch
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Mexico violence: Gunman kills Mexico City mayor's top aides
A gunman has shot dead two top aides of the mayor of Mexico City, Clara mayor's private secretary, Ximena Guzmán, and Brugada's adviser, José Muñoz, were killed on their way to work on Tuesday morning local time. Witnesses said an armed man first opened fire on Guzmán, who had stopped her car by the side of a busy avenue to pick up her colleague, and then on Muñoz, who was about to get into Guzmán's car for their morning gunman is believed to have escaped on a motorbike and have had at least one accomplice. The possible motive for the killing is still unknown but the attack is the latest in a series of murders of local politicians across the country. Mayor Brugada was visibly upset during a news conference when she recalled how she had "shared dreams and struggles" with her two aides over the years they had worked for said she would ensure the murder of her two aides would not go unpunished. President Claudia Sheinbaum was informed of the shooting during her daily morning news conference by the security minister, Omar García Harfuch, who has himself been a target of an armed ambush in the Sheinbaum described it as "a deplorable incident" and offered Mayor Brugada, who is from the same party as the president, all the support she may need. Police seized a motorbike and another vehicle they think was used in the attack, while forensic experts examined Guzmán's bullet-pierced car. CCTV footage from a nearby building shows a man carrying a motorcycle helmet in one hand and a gun in another approach Guzmán's car from the fires through the windscreen, then shoots Muñoz, before again firing at Guzmá he runs away, he turns around and fires another shot at Muñoz, who is collapsing on the pavement. Brugada, 61, was elected mayor of Mexico City in June of last year. The position is considered the second most powerful in the country after that of the president. While local politicians, especially the mayors of small towns, are often targeted in Mexico, attacks on politicians in the capital are more high-profile exception is the ambush in 2020 of García Harfuch, who was Mexico City's chief of police at the time. More than two dozen gunmen opened fire on his car and killed two of his bodyguards and a passer-by in one of the most brazen attacks to have occurred in the Harfuch was hit three times, but survived and went on to become Mexico's security minister in October of last year. He said the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful criminal groups, was behind that have not yet said who they think was behind Tuesday's murder of the two aides, but security experts say the deliberate and precise way the gunman operated indicates that he is a professional hitman.
The Guardian
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Personal secretary and adviser to Mexico City's mayor killed in attack
The personal secretary and an adviser to Mexico City's mayor have been shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle in a brazen daylight attack in a central part of the city. Mayor Clara Brugada called the murder of her personal secretary Ximena Guzmán and adviser José Muñoz a 'direct attack'. Brugada said in a statement that the attack took place in the Moderna neighborhood. Authorities were investigating the motive and checking surveillance camera footage to identify the attackers, she said in a statement. 'There will be no impunity. Those responsible will be arrested and must face justice,' Brugada added. Brugada holds the second most powerful political post in the country to President Claudia Sheinbaum, and they are allies in the Morena party. The Mexico City police chief Omar García Harfuch said in a post on social media: 'We deeply regret the loss of our colleagues … We will not allow this cowardly attack to go unpunished.' Harfuch himself was the target of a previous attempted assassination in 2020, when gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation cartel ambushed his car in the centre of the city. He was shot three times; three people were killed. That attack took place on one of the most upmarket stretches of Avenida Paseo de la Reforma, a 9-mile boulevard that cuts diagonally across the capital of Latin America's second largest economy. During her daily press conference, Sheinbaum – who served as Mexico City's mayor before winning the presidency last year – said that the people believed responsible for their killings were riding on a motorcycle. 'It is a deplorable incident and we are going to give all the support that the mayor may need,' the president added. More details soon…
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- The Guardian
Mexican woman charged in US with supplying arms to ‘terrorist' drug cartel
A 39-year-old woman has become the first Mexican national to be indicted in the United States on charges of providing material support to a cartel designated as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the US Department of Justice. María Del Rosario Navarro is accused of conspiring with others to provide grenades to the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), a powerful Mexican crime faction that the US in February designated as a terrorist organization alongside other criminal groups across Latin America. 'The arrest of María Del Rosario Navarro Sánchez should send a clear message to people who wish to align themselves with terrorist groups that they will be sought out and held to the highest extent of the law,' the FBI director, Kash Patel, said in the statement. Navarro was also charged with 'conspiracy to smuggle and transport aliens in the United States, straw purchasing and trafficking in firearms, bulk cash smuggling conspiracy, and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute', the justice department added. Two Mexican men are, together with Navarro, also facing gun-trafficking charges in a Texas court. Mexico's security minister, Omar García Harfuch, had earlier this month confirmed the arrest of Navarro, whom he described as a CJNG operator, as part of a federal-level operation in Mexico's western Jalisco state. 'The justice department thanks its Mexican law enforcement partners,' the US department added. Mexican officials have repeatedly accused the US weapons manufacturers of negligence in the sale of weapons that end up in the hands of organized crime groups. The US terrorism designations have come alongside a government crackdown on migration, with thousands of foreigners being deported to third countries in Latin America.
Toronto Star
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
Mexican security chief confirms cartel family members entered U.S. in a deal with Trump administration
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration. Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed a report by independent journalist Luis Chaparro that family members of Ovidio Guzman Lopez, who was extradited to the United States in 2023, had entered the U.S.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Cartel Family Members Crossed Into U.S., Mexican Official Says
A group of family members of Sinaloa Cartel leaders crossed into the United States last week, likely as part of a deal with the Trump administration, Mexico's secretary of security said on Tuesday evening. For days, rumors had spread that 17 relatives, including the ex-wife of the crime boss known as El Chapo, had flown from a cartel stronghold to Tijuana, Mexico, and then crossed into the United States. A news outlet, Pie de Nota, reported that they had surrendered to U.S. federal authorities there, citing anonymous sources. The Sinaloa Cartel, co-founded by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, is one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world, although it has been divided by violence between rival factions as several of its leaders face prison and prosecution in the United States. When asked about reports that the family members had entered the United States on Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said 'there is no more information' than what she had seen. But the security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, then confirmed late Tuesday that relatives of the cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, one of El Chapo's four sons, had surrendered to American authorities. Mr. Guzmán López was extradited to the United States in 2023. 'It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or a plea bargain that the Department of Justice is giving him,' Mr. García Harfuch told the Mexican network Radio Fórmula. 'The family that left were not targets and were not being sought by the Mexican authorities,' he added. Mexican officials were waiting for the U.S. Department of Justice to share information, he said. He said that he believed Mr. Guzmán López was naming members of criminal organizations, likely as part of a cooperation agreement. Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters on Wednesday morning that U.S. officials 'have to inform' their Mexican counterparts whether there was an agreement or not, urging transparency with both the American public and Mexicans, and noting that Mexican soldiers had died in the operation to capture Mr. Guzmán Lopez. Ovidio Guzmán López plans to plead guilty to federal drug charges, according to court papers, in what would make him the first of El Chapo's sons, often called Los Chapitos, to acknowledge guilt in a U.S. federal courthouse. Mr. Guzmán López was twice captured by the Mexican authorities over the last decade. He was first detained, briefly, in 2019, until his own gunmen engaged in a bloody battle with the Mexican military in the city of Culiacán and forced his release. Then he was arrested by Mexican security forces in 2023 in that same city and quickly extradited to the United States. Along with a full brother, two half brothers and one of his father's former business partners, Mr. Guzmán López was named in a sprawling indictment. His full brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, has also been in negotiations with federal authorities in Chicago to reach his own plea deal. (Their father, El Chapo, was sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge in the United States in 2019.) The security secretary stressed the Mexican role in Mr. Guzmán López's case, saying, 'Ovidio was detained 100 percent by the Mexican authorities.' The security minister's confirmation came the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice announced new charges against men accused of being Sinaloa Cartel leaders, the first since President Trump designated it a terrorist organization. Those charges include narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. In announcing the charges, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, Adam Gordon, directly addressed cartel leaders in a news conference, telling them they would be 'betrayed by your friends' and 'hounded by your enemies.' The movement of the family members to the United States — and the speculation that it could mean a plea agreement with the U.S. government — has fueled high-profile discussion in Mexico about who might be implicated by imprisoned cartel leaders. 'The Chapitos are going to sing, and we're going to learn many things,' Senator Ricardo Anaya, an opposition lawmaker, told reporters this week. 'Because the North American government doesn't offer immunity in exchange for nothing, they offer it in exchange for information.'
