Sunday, April 19, 2009

Mass Arrest

Around 50 alleged members of the Michoacán Family were arrested yesterday while attending a party in Morelia. Among them was one of the group's four leaders, José Loya. 

Update: Actually, the captured leader seems to have been Rafael Cedeño Hernández, not Loya as had been reported.

2 comments:

Erik Loomis said...

My Spanish is less than awesome and though I could probably translate the article OK, it'd take me too much time. So let me ask you, is this one of the leading narco families?

pc said...

Yeah, these guys are a big deal. They're not quite as notorious as the Zetas or the Sinaloa traffickers, especially in the American media, but they are definitely a heavyweight bunch. They are mostly from Michoacán (as the name indicates) where they managed to take over trafficking in the state (which includes key routes from Pacific ports to Mexico City) from another family that ran things for years, the Valencias, but they've branched out into other states recently. They're also an interesting group in that they published a manifesto, and have shown more of an interest in promoting themselves as a more socially conscious drug gang.