Hit in Guanajuato from the fuel mafia | A …

At least 15 people were killed and seven others injured yesterday after an armed group broke into a bar in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. A day before the attack, the president of Mexico was a few kilometers from the bar reaffirming his strategy to fight the theft of fuel, a crime very present in the state. "There are 15 men who have lost their lives," confirmed Juan José Martínez, spokesman for Guanajuato's prosecutor's office. He added that they still did not know the identity and number of members of the group who had burst in the bar "The men's club La Playa", in the municipality of Salamanca. "The group arrived and fired at customers and company workers," he explained. Until now, police authorities have confirmed that three men and one woman have already been transferred to a hospital in the region. The deadly victims, meanwhile, have not yet been identified. After the attack, security forces in the state of Guanajuato, backed by the army, deployed an operation to try to locate the perpetrators. According to local media, about 20 people were in the bar and the attackers came in, their faces covered.

From Salamanca goes through the main pipeline of the public company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and is one of the areas most affected by fuel theft, a crime that has rebounded in recent years and which caused losses of about 3 000 million dollars a year. A few days after his arrival as President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched an operation against the fuel traffickers. He also ordered the closure of pipelines to prevent looting, which resulted in a shortage of gasoline in several states, particularly in the center of the country. As Guanajuato is one of the places where fuel theft is most present, Obrador participated in a public event on Friday afternoon and sent a message to the criminal gangs: "I hope that Guanajuato, the country, is going to 'go with peace of mind'. At the same time, 100 km from Salamanca, police and military are carrying out an operation to capture José Antonio Yépez, nicknamed "El Marro", and targeted to be the new boss of huachicoleo (fuel theft) and head of the cartel of Santa Rosa . Lima As part of the operation, the police authorities arrested the criminal group's financial operator, Angélica N, El Marro's sister-in-law, who was released on Friday, and Javier N, a former federal police officer. Following his declared war against the huachicoleo, Obrador received his first threat at the end of January. Outside the Salamanca refinery, local authorities found a vehicle with a device that appeared to be an explosive alongside a banner attributed to Yepez in which he asked Obrador to remove the military from the region. "Remove the security forces from Guanajuato, otherwise, I will start killing you with innocents to see that this is not a game," reads the message. "Everything is under control – it's a false alarm," Obrador said at his daily press conference. But a few weeks later, armed groups set fire to trucks and blocked freeways on behalf of the new cape.