Author of the column “Snakes and Ladders” (Serpientes y Escaleras), Salvador García Soto is one of the critical journalists with a wide presence in the print and electronic media of Mexico. This is one of his latest columns on the “Huachicol Fiscal” scandal, now widely known as the Mexican “Marinagate”.
During the aftermath of the López Obrador administration, the trail of deaths and executions left so far by the fuel theft “Marinagate” has now totaled five murders of individuals involved in this criminal network controlled from the Navy by brothers Manuel Roberto and Fernando Farías Laguna, nephews of former Navy Secretary Rafael Ojeda.
Three of the executions were of naval officers, one of them a rear admiral. These deaths are in addition to the alleged “suicide” of a naval captain, who was head of customs in Tampico, and another naval captain who died from an “accident” during “live shooting practice,” according to the official version.
The judicial file being investigated by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) includes the names of five members of the Mexican Navy who were violently murdered, all between April and November 2024, still under the López Obrador administration. This was when the first allegations of the huachicol fiscal (tax-fuel theft) and smuggling network operated by high-ranking officials of the Semar (Semar) were also filed by members of th Meixcan Navy.
The first case is that of Giovany Muñoz Román, a Navy second-in-command, who was shot dead outside his home in a popular area of the Port of Manzanillo on June 6 of last year.
Earlier, in April, a shooting had been reported against a sailor who was seriously wounded while receiving a haircut. The stylist who was treating him was killed in the attack.
By October 21, when the Navy had already received specific allegations about corruption in Manzanillo, Magaly Nava Ramos, who worked at the FGR delegation in Colima, was attacked.
He was shot in his truck, and Magaly was the sister of a Customs Agency official, while her boyfriend was a sailor named Angel Pérez.
A week later, there was another armed attack in which Josué de la Mora Cobián, also a sailor in the 18th Infantry Battalion, was killed, while a companion was wounded in the same attack.
But of all the sailors killed in this scandal, the highest-ranking so far has been Rear Admiral Fernando Rubén Guerrero Alcantar, who was murdered on November 8 after he had sent a letter to former Secretary of the Navy Rafael Ojeda, informing him of the criminal network headed by his two nephews-in-law, the Farías Lagunas, one a rear admiral and the other a vice admiral.
And in addition to these five executions, there are the two strange deaths of the two naval captains.
The question, at this point, is:
How many more sailors will die, executed, or in “accidents” or sudden “suicides” in an attempt to silence witnesses, participants, or authorities who protected and covered up the criminal network that entrenched itself in the prestigious Mexican Navy during López Obrador’s six-year term?…”
Excerpt from Salvador García Soto’s column on Serpientes y Escaleras
