"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Armed Criminal Cell Of 50 Hitmen Takes Over Town For Two Days In Sonora. For two days, the community of Félix Gómez (El Dipo), was occupied by alleged members of criminal groups.
The tranquility of the small community of Félix Gómez, El Dipo, in the municipality of Pitiquito, Sonora, was abruptly interrupted by a group of more than 50 armed hitmen who burst into the place. For two days the criminals took over the town, looted at least five houses and stayed to live in them despite the presence of their owners.
On the day of the raid, April 9, the majority of the inhabitants fled, only two families remained; however, the following afternoon the residents returned because they couldn’t find anywhere to take refuge.
MILENIO went to this community, where residents said that the hitmen abducted two people, one of them identified as Manuel, an elderly man with a disability in one limb.
More than 15 days after his disappearance, his brother, who asked not to reveal his identity because he was threatened with being arrested if he spoke, is demanding to be informed where Manuel's body was left, just so that he can bury him.
“At the very least the bones to bury them, that's what I want. I wanted to confront them, but there were about 30 of them, they had a rifle, pointed at my head, they asked me where the marijuana was, to take out the weapons, and they had my brother with a gun also at his head, this was before they took him away in one of those trucks that they call Monstuos,” he revealed.
This thin-built man confronted the criminals in an attempt to save his brother; He took a baseball bat and threatened to hit one of the armed men, but when threatened he gave up his attempt.
“I was going to face them, and I told one of them, I'm going to hit you in the head with this bat, but they were armed,” he highlighted.
Irma, a woman who also fears for her physical integrity, assured that the criminals lived those two days in the patio of her house.
They came to my house and they have no idea. As there are no doors, they spilled out back there (in the yard), there were one or two of them and they didn't sleep because they heard noises all day long. I told my old man not to make any noise, so they wouldn't hear us, I was scared to death," she said.
Today the houses that were looted are distinguished from the others because the doors are tied with chains, this was due to the hitmen who damaged the metal plates.
The town of Félix Gómez is located 50 kilometers from the highway that connects Hermosillo and Nogales, Sonora; It’s a stretch of terrain surrounded by desert lands that are not suitable for planting crops other than for keeping livestock, but which today look empty because the criminals have also taken over the animals, and the ranchers have chosen to sell their cows and leave. A few remain, but they live in fear.
MILENIO went to El Dipo in the company of members of the LeBaron family, who arrived to provide support to the residents of Félix Gómez. Ceci Flores, leader of the Sonora search mothers collective, was also present because she received an anonymous report that warned of an alleged clandestine grave in a mine located a few kilometers from the ranch besieged by drug traffickers.
At this time, the only safe way to reach the place is with the accompaniment of the state authorities of Sonora.
A handful of State Police trucks, an armored vehicle known as a Rinoceronte, and an element carrying a 50-caliber rifle, safely transported the LeBarón family and activist Ceci Flores.
“We are guarded by at least 20 patrols, some armored and others with machine guns, apparently that is required to come to this little town in the middle of nowhere,” commented Julián LeBarón.
The El Tecolote mine is located 5 kilometers from Félix Gómez. It stopped operating in 1984, since then the area looks abandoned; What was once a mining town is today completely destroyed; It is the ideal place for criminals hiding from the authorities and facing a fight against their rivals.
Upon arriving at the point, Ceci Flores found, outside a destroyed farm that at one time served as a dwelling for the miners, more than 100 shell casings, some blood stains, tennis shoes, underwear, socks, several boxes of bullets for AR-15 rifles.
The activist presumes that several people who were beheaded were murdered in that place; This video was published on social networks, and an anonymous complaint told Ceci Flores that the human remains were there, in that mine, in the municipality of Pitiquito.
“We are here because of an anonymous call that was made to us about a video circulating on social networks where there were 12 decapitated people. We say it is an extermination field because the house is completely shot up and there are hundreds of shell casings, pools of blood and clothing apparently belonging to the victims,” the activist added.
This violent area of Sonora is in dispute between two criminal groups: Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Cártel del Noroeste (CDN), on this occasion it’s not known which of these two groups attacked the residents of Félix Gómez.
