What is known about the mass tourist kidnapping that occurred in Puerto Vallarta

655

The group allegedly traveled on a tour called “Vallartazo”, where they visit various municipalities from Guadalajara to that port.

The Reforma newspaper revealed over the weekend that around 20 young people traveling from Guanajuato suffered a massive kidnapping in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, allegedly intercepted by members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG).

The group allegedly traveled on a tour called “Vallartazo”, where they visit various municipalities from Guadalajara to that port, where they were located by the criminal group on Fluvial Avenue, near Avenida Grandes Lagos, in the Fluvial Vallarta subdivision.

This has caught the attention of journalist Alejandro Hope, a security expert.

In his column for El Universal, Plata o Plomo, he details that this event is still a mystery.

“The details of the incident are still scarce and confusing. According to the version of the Jalisco attorney general, Octavio Solís Gómez, Guanajuato tourists were traveling in eight all-terrain vehicles through a residential area of ​​Puerto Vallarta, when they were intercepted by a group of armed men. Some of the victims try to flee, there are gunshots and one of the Guanajuato, a businessman dedicated to the transport of materials, receives a lethal wound. The other members of the group disappear, “says Hope.

Add:

“But, curiously, there is no formal complaint a week after the incident for the kidnapping or disappearance of people, be it Jalisco or Guanajuato. Or at least that’s what the prosecutor Solís reported,”

Thus, he points out that there is more speculation regarding the case than concrete data and evidence.

Likewise, Hope makes a list of general reflections on the case:

“A massive kidnapping like the one that occurred in Puerto Vallarta can only happen if there are networks of complicity with criminal groups in the corporations of the different levels of government. It is not anything to arrest eight people, capture 14 or 20 people (after hitting a barrage of shots) and disappear like nothing, in the heart of one of the main tourist centers of the country. That does not happen if someone is not protecting the criminals. “

“It is likely that the victims were located by their kidnappers long before they arrived in Puerto Vallarta. It is even possible that they have been targeted since their departure from Guanajuato a few days earlier. That points to an ever-increasing phenomenon Marked: the criminal networks of the center-west of the country cross state borders. What happens in Jalisco impacts Guanajuato and vice versa. The same can be said of Michoacán and Colima. There is a clearly regional component in the patterns of violence in that area of ​​the This suggests that a federal response should be considered that would cover the entire region and that would coordinate the authorities of those four states “:

 “Due to the location of the events, the incident is international news and may become the highlight for a tourism industry that has already been hit hard by the pandemic. In that sense, the authorities of the three levels of government would do well to design and implement a specific security strategy for towns with a high influx of tourists. “

 Finally it says:

“The events in Puerto Vallarta are not a minor matter. They are a sign of the deterioration of security conditions in the center-west of the country and a sign of the freedom that various criminal groups have to operate.”

On the other hand, Reforma said that in the area, local authorities found businessman, Joaquín Alba, who died later in a hospital, injured.  

They also located three off-road vehicles that apparently belong to the victims. The City Council denied that there was a kidnapping “levantón”.

Source: elimparcial.com, infobae.com