Mahahual Quintana Roo Mayor dies after vehicle riddled with bullets

The mayor had received threats from criminal groups dedicated to collecting drugs on the coasts of Quintana Roo, after the access to Mahahual was closed due to the coronavirus crisis

Mahahual, Quintana Roo

The week started with a new blow of violence to Mexican politics. This Monday the mayor of Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Obed Durón Gómez was assassinated.

The attack on the mayor took place while on his way to the Xcalak community. 

According to reports, Durón Gómez was traveling in a white truck in the company of other people, when subjects aboard a white City Honda-type vehicle intercepted and shot them.

According to the police report, the mayor of Mahahual was traveling in the company of other people in a white van en route to the community, but before reaching the junction, the van was intercepted where he was shot.

The attackers fled toward the federal highway, while the mayor was transferred alive to a private clinic but died shortly before he could undergo surgery.

Ministerial Police, along with elements of the National Guard and Mexican Navy, declared a Red Code and carried out area search operations, however, they were not successful in finding those responsible.

The vehicle in which he was traveling was hit numerous times by the gunfire.

The Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office reported that it is already investigating the motive for the murder. “The FGE reports that it has already started the investigation folder related to the events in which a person of the male sex and authority from Mahahual lost his life apparently by shooting with a firearm. An operation is deployed in search of individuals ”, he detailed.

One of the main lines of investigation is oriented to an act of possible revenge because last week five people were handed over to the authorities for committing criminal activities.

Obed Durón Gómez, who was being investigated by the Othón P. Blanco municipal comptroller, where the inhabitants reported an irregular performance of their functions, went from chief of police to mayor of Mahahual, in 2019. He was related to criminal groups in the community from Xcalak, one of the most remote and paradisiacal on the southern border of Mexico.

In Xcalak, the inhabitants dedicate themselves to “beaching”, as the function of searching for cocaine bricks thrown into the Caribbean by drug trafficking planes is known.

The community located in the extreme south of Quintana Roo, is a spectacular town of palm trees, turquoise waters of lighthouses and a lagoon. Its beaches are the final destination for anything of value that falls in the Atlantic, mainly the coca thrown by the Colombian planes.

This method consists of launching the drug on land so that boats come to the place; however, they do not always have time to collect all the cargo, and the packages are lost and the packages may appear floating in the sea, stuck on the shore or tangled in the mangrove swamp. Wet cocaine (out of the sea) sells for $ 5.00 a bag the size of a fingernail.

In the Xcalak community, the drug that leaves is sent to Chetumal and from there it travels north or to Cancun, where the Sinaloa, Gulf, and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels are fighting a turf war.

Source: infobae.com, riviera-maya-news.com

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