CJNG ordered Uruapan mayor's murder by encrypted chat while he held his son

At 7:50 p.m. on Day of the Dead last year, a message written in capital letters landed in an encrypted group chat: it did not matter that Uruapan's mayor Carlos Manzo was carrying his child — the attack should proceed anyway. Six or seven minutes later a 17-year-old methamphetamine addict shot Manzo with a 9mm pistol in the packed town square, while journalists livestreamed the opening of the Candle Festival. The mayor died on the way to the hospital.

An El País reconstruction published on Sunday maps how investigators dismantled the CJNG network behind the killing. The trail ran from 14 videos recorded at the scene — social-media footage and security cameras — to a cellphone belonging to a man known as "El Jaguar," and on to a Threema group chat in which a figure called "El Licenciado" issued the order. The alleged mastermind, Ramón Álvarez Ayala, known as "R1," was arrested in July; El Licenciado, described as R1's right-hand man in the operation, had been captured months earlier. Thirty-four suspects have been arrested, with at least five more in investigators' sights.

None of the attack team survived to be arrested. The gunman, 17-year-old Víctor Ubaldo, was killed by gunfire from one of Manzo's bodyguards shortly after the attack; the other two, Fernando Josué and Ramiro, were found murdered nine days later on a highway outside Uruapan, identified by clothes from a store they had visited hours before the shooting. All of Manzo's bodyguards are in prison except their fugitive chief. Rumours initially circulated that the bodyguards had been part of the conspiracy; investigators found no evidence for it. Manzo himself was a controversial but popular figure who patrolled alongside police and paraded arrested criminals before the public on social media. President Claudia Sheinbaum has made the fight against crime a pillar of her administration, and the criminal wars in Sinaloa that marked its first months show no sign of easing.

The weekend supplied the sequel. Miguel Angel Almaraz, mayor of the border city Rio Bravo, was kidnapped on a highway in San Luis Potosí while travelling with his family. The family was released after a short period and reported the abduction; authorities from San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas launched search operations, and by Sunday morning Mexico's security secretary, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said the mayor had been found safe. Tamaulipas's governor confirmed the kidnapping after a full day.

It remains unclear whether Almaraz was rescued or released by his captors.