Jesús Aguilar Iñiguez has been accused of torture and having links with the narco, despite this he continues as director of the Ministerial Police.

The head of the Ministerial Police of Sinaloa, Jesús Antonio Aguilar Iñiguez, has a murky past. For fifteen years he has been accused of having links to drug trafficking and in 2010 his name appeared on a list published by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR, Fiscalía) as part of the most wanted men in the service of organized crime. Although he did not pass the exams that would certify him to perform security tasks, he was appointed director of the Police with the endorsement of Governor Mario López Valdez. Now he is investigated for torture

The appointment of the commander known as Chuy Toño to the head of the Ministerial, the police force that depends on the State Attorney and is responsible for investigating the crimes, caused surprise. After having remained seven years outside the public scene, in 2011 he was appointed head of the corporation in the Government of Lopez Valdez. When the reporters questioned the president why he appointed a man with a criminal record in that position, he replied: “With white popcorn we can not face crime.”

Aguilar Iñiguez can not shake off the accusations that link him to organized crime. In June 2013 the weekly Rio Doce, a publication specialized in security issues, published a video where an escort of the governor tells that the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and Ismael El Mayo Zambada asked the governor, in a meeting secret, appoint Chuy Toño as director of the Ministerial Police.

Chuy Toño is a man of all trusts of the governor and has all the backing of the Sinaloa cartel, says Javier Valdez, a journalist from Rio Doce. “He could not be in that position without the approval of the cartel, the narco dictates who will be there to facilitate its operation,” he says. One example is that the Ministerial carries out the most intense operations in the areas where the Beltrán Leyva, the enemies of the Sinaloa cartel, have a greater presence, explains Valdez. In addition, when they stop members of the rival group they are presented before the media and inform which organization they belong to. On the other hand, when the operations are carried out in Culiacán -the operative heart of the Sinaloan organization– there are few detainees who are not presented publicly. “They (police) do the dirty work, clear the way to the Sinaloa cartel and take away the enemies,” says the specialist in drug trafficking issues.

The torturer

Aguilar Iñiguez is now under investigation for torture. The agents under his charge beat and suffocated a woman with a plastic bag to confess to a homicide. The case of Yecenia Armenta, who was almost four years imprisoned accused of the murder of her husband and was released on June 7, was resumed by Amnesty International, who launched a campaign in favor of his release. Martín Robles Armenta, Deputy Attorney General of the Government of Sinaloa, told the newspaper Noroeste that the police chief and his subordinates are being investigated since September 2015, but none have been separated from their position.

One of the most serious problems that Sinaloa suffers, says Mercedes Murillo Monge, president of the Sinaloan Civic Front, an organization that defends human rights, is torture. For 40 years that he has been an activist, almost all the cases of torture that reach his civilian group are committed by police . “What we say is that you have to investigate who orders torture and you have to run to these people; a person who tortures once does it forever, “he says. In addition, insecurity has increased in this administration, says Murillo. “Since (Chuy Toño) came to occupy the post again, the police do what they please and is an awesome thing insecurity, again we are with so many dead,” he complains.

Aguilar Iñiguez is a career police officer, Javier Valdez points out, but he is not a public servant with a scientific background in line with the law and much less respectful of human rights. “Many innocent people are detained by the police, extorted, tortured, disappeared and murdered,” the journalist adds. 

Your story with the narco

In September 2004, the operator of the Juarez cartel, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, was murdered along with his wife in Culiacán. The younger brother of drug trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes, El Señor de los Cielos , was attacked by armed men when he left a shopping center. Pedro Perez, his chief of escorts and at the same time commander of the Ministerial, tried to defend him, but was wounded. After this fact was revealed that the security of the capo was in charge of several police officers under the command of Aguilar Íñiguez, who at that time was also director of the corporation.

The then deputy attorney general of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), José Luis Vasconcelos, revealed that he was investigating Aguilar for his alleged links with the Juarez cartel. Also, he added, there were accusations that accused him of protecting Ismael El Mayo Zambada . In mid-October 2004, federal authorities searched two houses in Mazatlan and issued an arrest warrant for organized crime, money laundering and drug trafficking. Three months before, the State Prosecutor’s Office had opened an investigation for illicit enrichment when it became known that he had two residences that did not correspond to his salary.

In May 2010 the PGR issued an agreement offering a reward for those who provide information for 33 lieutenants, assassins and drug money launderers. Jesus Antonio appeared on the list. A year later, when Chuy Toño had assumed the police direction, he said in an interview with Noroeste that he had been acquitted of the charges brought by the PGR because it was an administrative error. “Through the defense I defended myself, I provided all the evidence … and that’s how I showed that I have nothing to do with illicit things.” 

Source: TVP, El Pais

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