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Angélica Lagunas Jaramillo | |
|---|---|
| Born | Angélica Lagunas Jaramillo 1959 (age 64–65) Tlalchapa, Guerrero, Mexico |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Other names |
|
| Employer | Gulf Cartel |
| Criminal penalty | 20 years |
| Criminal status | Convicted |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Ana Bertha González Lagunas (daughter) |
Angélica Lagunas Jaramillo (born 1959) is a Mexican convicted criminal and former member of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, Mexico. She joined the cartel in 2001 after she was kidnapped by Los Zetas, their former paramilitary wing, for running a smuggling business in Matamoros along with her daughter Ana Bertha González Lagunas without their authorization. Among her kidnappers was Omar Lorméndez Pitalúa, whom she would marry the following year. Once in the cartel, she was responsible for smuggling narcotics from Mexico to the U.S. and purchasing properties for them. The properties were used to house criminals and drug trafficking merchandise. After fleeing to Mexico City in 2003, she was arrested by federal authorities and offered to become a protected witness. She denied their offer. Lagunas Jaramillo was eventually sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her daughter was killed in 2007.
Early life
[edit]Angélica Lagunas Jaramillo was born in Tlalchapa, Guerrero, Mexico, in 1959. Her father was a mango farmer and her mother helped him sell them. During low season, her father worked as a truck driver. She was the third out of seven siblings. While growing up, her two oldest siblings died; one of them died in a vehicle collision and the other was killed during an armed robbery. Lagunas Jaramillo grew up in a humble household. The rural community where she lived lacked running water and electricity.[1] She studied primary and secondary school in her hometown. For high school, Lagunas Jaramillo left to study in Mexico City after her paternal uncle who lived in the city offered to help her with housing and tuition. She eventually dropped out of high school and started a job as a secretary for La Prensa, a newspaper in Mexico City.[2]
When she was twenty-years old, she married a hotel owner from Naucalpan, State of Mexico. Three years into her marriage, however, her husband was killed by a stray bullet while Lagunas Jaramillo was still pregnant. After having her daughter Ana Bertha González Lagunas and experiencing economic hardships, Lagunas Jaramillo sold the hotel and planned to emigrate to the United States to find a better living. She returned to her hometown in Guerrero and asked her mother to take care of her children, and then made her way to the U.S.[1] However, she was unable to relocate there and settled near the U.S.-Mexico border in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. With the money she had saved up, she opened a restaurant in Matamoros and started selling gold and perfumes on the side. Nine years later, she bought a house and invited her daughter to relocate to Matamoros. She agreed while one of Lagunas Jaramillo's sons decided to stay in Guerrero, arguing that the climate in Tamaulipas was not a fit for him. Her daughter graduated from a technical school in Tamaulipas after studying social work. While in Matamoros, Lagunas Jaramillo became involved in contraband, including drug trafficking.[2]
Kidnapping and marriage
[edit]Lagunas Jaramillo married her kidnapper Omar Lorméndez Pitalúa after the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas, ordered him to abduct her. The two first met on 16 August 2001, when Lorméndez Pitalúa and other members of Los Zetas, the cartel's former paramilitary group, abducted Lagunas Jaramillo and her daughter González Lagunas for running a contraband business in Matamoros without the cartel's authorization. The Gulf Cartel required independent smugglers to pay a taxation for smuggling drugs and other illegal merchandise in their corridor.[a] However, Lagunas Jaramillo was running a contraband business of alcohol, perfumes, cocaine and marijuana without paying fees to the cartel. She operated out of her restaurant.
According to the testimony of Lagunas Jaramillo and Agustín Hernández Martínez, a former Gulf Cartel operator and protected witness under the code name "Rafael", the cartel summoned about eighteen Zetas gunmen to abduct Lagunas Jaramillo and her daugther in Matamoros. The night the incident occurred, they went to her property and rang the door's bell. When Lagunas Jaramillo opened, the gunmen stormed in and submitted her. Among the gunmen was Lorméndez Pitalúa. Lagunas Jaramillo was dragged from her hairs around the house while the gunmen searched for contraband merchandise. They were unable to find cocaine and marijuana and proceeded to take her money and jewelry. Lagunas Jaramillo cried for help saying she was being robbed, but Zetas gunmen told her it was because she had failed to pay the cartel's taxation. She was then forced into a vehicle.
Lagunas Jaramillo was taken by Los Zetas to a secret location known as "Punto Óscar" to meet Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the leader of the cartel. In the meeting, she was forced to hand over the drugs in her possession, give the cartel the money she had in her bank accounts to pay for the outstanding fees, and work for them. If she refused, the Gulf Cartel promised to kill her. Cárdenas Guillén also threatened Lagunas Jaramillo with death if she did not buy houses for the cartel under her name. The Gulf Cartel intended to use these properties as safehouses. Cárdenas Guillén told her he would pay her US$100 for each transaction, and that she was exempted from any taxation for her drug operations. She was also forced to pay MXN$20,000 for each of the gunmen who raided her property. Both Lagunas Jaramillo and her daughter agreed to the Gulf Cartel's measures.
After leaving the meeting, Lagunas Jaramillo gave Los Zetas the exact location of a vehicle and driver who were holding 30 kg (66 lb) of her cocaine. Within a few minutes, Los Zetas seized the merchandise; she agreed to have the cartel keep her drugs. Approximately three months after her abduction, however, her relationship with Los Zetas strengthened. Her restaurant became a popular eatery for Zetas members, and she became involved in drug trafficking activities with drugs provided by Los Zetas. She helped them smuggle narcotics to the U.S. and the drug proceeds back into Mexico along with her daughter. Cárdenas Guillén trusted her work and allowed her to purchase drugs provided by Colombian suppliers with the cartel's money.[b] She was allowed to sell the drugs in Mexico or in the U.S., where the risks and earnings were higher. Both Lagunas Jaramillo and her daughter received uniforms and other accessories from the cartel when they were to participate in an operation.
While working in Los Zetas, Lorméndez Pitalúa and Lagunas Jaramillo became romantically involved. Lorméndez Pitalúa asked Cárdenas Guillén for 15 days off to organize his wedding. Both married in 2002. Arturo Guzmán Decena ("Z-1"), another associate of Lorméndez Pitalúa, became romantically involved with Lagunas Jaramillo's daughter and both had a child out of wedlock. On 21 November 2002, Guzmán Decena was killed in a shootout with the Mexican Army in Matamoros, close to Lagunas Jaramillo's restaurant. Cárdenas Guillén ordered that González Laguna be paid part of Guzmán Decena's salary every fifteen days (the salary was divided between the three of Guzmán Decena's lovers, including González Laguna).
Arrest and conviction
[edit]After Cárdenas Guillén was arrested in March 2003, Lagunas Jaramillo and her daughter left to Mexico City. The Gulf Cartel had suffered a significant organizational blow after the arrest and Lagunas Jaramillo did not feel she had the protection she needed to continue working in Matamoros. She arrived in Mexico City in May 2003 and was arrested by the Attorney General's Office (PGR). She claimed she had returned to Mexico City to see her ill mother who was hospitalized. The PGR offered to drop her charges and make her a protected witness under the code name "Roberta", but Lagunas Jaramillo turned down their offer.[2]
On 31 May 2003,[3] she was charged with organized crime involvement and drug trafficking by a federal judge. In a police confession, Lagunas Jaramillo admitted that she was a member of the Gulf Cartel.[4] She said she was involved in purchasing properties for them to house members of the cartel and store drug trafficking merchandise. The judge asked the PGR to provide evidence for the charges against Lagunas Jaramillo.[5][6] On 18 June, the PGR's former Specialized Unit Against Organized Crime (UEDO) officially charged Lagunas Jaramilo for the previously mentioned charges. They specified that she was involved in smuggling narcotics from Mexico to the U.S. for Los Zetas.[c][7] She was eventually convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In addition, Lagunas Jaramillo was ordered to pay a MXN$256,000 fine. She served her sentence at Penal de Santa Martha Acatitla, a female penitentiary in Iztapalapa.[2]
Daughter's murder
[edit]On 1 December 2007, her daughter (aged 32) was killed by an unidentified male assassin inside a motel room in Matamoros.[8] According to state police chief Arturo Cortés Solís, González Lagunas and regional Mexican singer Zayda Peña Arjona (aged 26) attended an Alejandra Guzmán music concert in Matamoros and then rented a room in Motel Mónaco at around 11:10 p.m.[9] Both of them were publicly friends,[10] but the police stated that they were dating in secret. Motel staff members stated that when both went into their room, a corpulent man of 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) drove into the parking lot and proceeded to their room. Peña and González Lagunas were about to engage in sexual intimacy when the assassin knocked on their door. When Peña attended it, the assassin stormed in. Peña ran to hide inside the room but was shot her in the back. The bullet perforated her back and went through her chin. She fell on the sofa and was gravely injured. González Lagunas, who was standing naked next to the bed, was shot on her nose and neck, killing her instantly. When hotel manager Lorenzo López Sánchez heard the noise, he proceeded to the room but was killed by the assassin as he exited the motel. His body was found close to the bedroom's door.[d][9]
Matamoros police officer Abel Infante Lara was called to the scene close to midnight. The police swarmed the motel within minutes. Hours later, the police discovered an abandoned Dodge Intrepid vehicle with Texas license plates near the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge.[8] The vehicle matched the description of the one used by the assassin. Inside it they found a .380 caliber gun, which matched the one used at the crime scene. Peña survived the attack and was sent to the Dr. Alfredo Pumarejo Hospital. She was pronounced as being in serious condition for her wounds on her chin. Peña's mother Blanca Aidé Arjona, who worked as a public prosecutor, arrived to the hospital when her daughter was taken into surgery. Once the surgery ended, Peña was sent to the intensive care area while she recovered from her wounds. A day later, as hospital personnel changed their shifts at around 6:15 a.m., a gunmen went into the hospital to kill her. Several doctors and nurses noticed the assassin, who was described as wearing black clothing, walking through the hospital's hallways. They did not tried to stop him because they noticed he was armed. The hospital was undergoing construction and they did not have enough security personnel. The gunmen shot Peña while she was sleeping in bed. The two of them went through her thorax, one was on her left shoulder, and the other one on her face. Peña was killed instantly.[9]
The gunman fled the scene by merging with the hospital attendees in the waiting room. Days later, after investigators analyzed the crime scene, they discovered that two guns were used to kill Peña inside the hospital room: one of .38 calibre and other of .380. This suggested that the gunman may have presumably used two different guns or that he may have had an accomplice. Investigators theorized that the murder may have been carried out by González Lagunas's former lover since his physical description matched the one described by eye-witnesses. González Lagunas's ex-lover was a Texan male of similar characteristics as the one presumably involved in her murder. The police stated that after the attack at the motel, the gunmen did not return to the U.S., but instead went to the hospital to kill Peña under fears that she may identify him once she recovered.[9]
[9] They also theorized that the way the murder was carried out showed that it may have been gang-related.[10] Since Lagunas Jaramillo and her husband were in prison when this incident occurred, they were unable to attend their daughter's funeral.[2]
See also
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ^ In the Mexican criminal underworld, this fee or taxation is known as piso.
- ^ In the Mexican criminal underworld, this process was known as la polla.
- ^ Two of Cárdenas Guillén's relatives, Francisco Salinas Aguilar and Juan Gilberto Meléndez Aguilar, were also charged that day.[7]
- ^ Another source stated that hotel employee was named Leonardo Sánchez.[11]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Padgett, Humberto (3 June 2012). "Las reinas del narco". Emeequis (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 7 February 2019 – via Cosecha Roja.
- ^ a b c d e Padgett, Humberto (26 June 2016). "Jefas del narco en México: Fajadas y sin silicona". Sin Embargo (in Spanish).
- ^ "Dictan formal prisión a mujer integrante del cártel del Golfo". El Universal (in Spanish). Notimex. 31 May 2003.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Otero, Silvia; Ramos, Jorge (1 June 2003). "Sentencian a 'El June' a 8 años de prisión". El Universal (in Spanish).
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Tercer informe de labores: resumen ejecutivo" (PDF) (in Spanish). Attorney General's Office. 1 September 2003. p. 43. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 July 2018.
- ^ "Sentencian a El June con 8 años de prisión". La Crónica de Hoy (in Spanish). 1 June 2003. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019.
- ^ a b Gómez, Francisco (18 June 2003). "Consignan a miembros del cártel del Golfo". El Universal (in Spanish).
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b "Acribillan y asesinan a cantante grupera Zayda". El Siglo de Torreón (in Spanish). 3 December 2007. Archived from the original on 22 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Pérez 2012, p. (Chapter) Caso: Zayda Peña, vocalista de los culpables. Una relación sentimentalmente prohibida.
- ^ a b Althaus, Dudley (3 December 2007). "Singer shot in Mexico ER new victim of drug war". The Houston Chronicle.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Conoce algunos de los gruperos que han muerto a manos del crimen". El Sol de México (in Spanish). Organización Editorial Mexicana. 2 July 2016. Archived from the original on 24 January 2020.
Bibliography
[edit]- Pérez, Edmundo (2012). Que me entierren con narcocorridos (in Spanish). Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial México. ISBN 978-6073111096.