Cancun, Q.R. — A policeman with a history for bribery was one of the bodies found executed along a stretch of Cancun highway Thursday. In a press conference Friday, authorities said the now-deceased officer had criminal ties with local human trafficking groups.
Luis Rodríguez Bucio, the Undersecretary of Federal Public Security (SSPC) of Mexico, who headed the press conference, said the officer, 28-year-old Andrei Argenis Pech, alias “Tecate,” was one of the bodies found a few meters from a vehicle and 10 spent 9-millimeter shells.
He reported that Argenis Pech, who was assigned to sector three of the municipality of Benito Juarez, was on medical leave due to a dislocated left shoulder at the time of his murder.
Rodriguez Bucio said that the now-deceased officer had in the past been accused of accepting bribes in exchange for allowing brothels to operate around Cancun. With the accusations, he was removed from the municipality’s Immediate Reaction Group.
During the Friday press conference, Rodriguez Bucio reported that on July 31, all four men had been abducted for what is believed to have been in retaliation for three FGE property searches in sector three where weapons and drugs were seized.
The official said that another line of FGE investigation indicates that those executed could be involved in providing protection to migrant traffickers from the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto to Cancun.
Rodriguez Bucio confirmed that when they arrived at the murder scene Thursday, there was a male found handling the bodies. He was arrested. He has been identified as 26-year-old Christian David Cortés Ramos, a former member of the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) of Benito Juárez (Cancun).
He was found at the scene claiming to be a friend of one of the decease men identified as 23-year-old Carlos Emanuel García López, alias “El Toro”, whose body he was found handling.
During their search, police also located a 15-year-old male who was taken into custody. Both were transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Rodriguez Bucio did not say if either of the arrested are being treated as suspects in the murder of the four men.