The official version: foreign fire, zero local ‘Mencho’
Salvador Cruz Neri, Hidalgo’s security secretary, came out to show his face. His message was clear as the smoke from burning cars: the cartel led by Nemesio Oseguera, ‘El Mencho’, does not operate here. Spot.
According to his story, Sunday’s chaos—several units burned on key roads—was the work of four guys who crossed from the State of Mexico. They are already detained, he says. Nothing to do with a local cell.
“The car burning was perpetrated by a group of four individuals, who entered from Huehuetoca, State of Mexico, and were detained before reaching the Arco Norte.”
The capture sounds cinematic. Without a single shot, they say. They seized four rifles (AK-47 and AR-15), drums with 20 liters of hydrocarbons, tow, lighters and drugs. One of the detainees even had burns on his face and clothes. Irrefutable proof, according to the authority.
The alternative explanation and short memory
While flatly denying the presence of the CJNG, Cruz Neri offers another theory for the violence in the area, especially in Tula. It would all be the fault of an internal fight within the local group known as the ‘H’. Their leader was captured, they fragmented and now they dispute the territory.
Curious how these ‘local groups’ always seem to act just when there are massive federal operations in Jalisco, birthplace of ‘Mencho’. The authorities received an alert precisely for that. They deployed 500 elements as prevention.
The official narrative is impeccable: external threat contained, rapid response, zero casualties. A script that we have heard before in other states that later ended with license plates being shot at. Time—and the next burning of cars—will tell if collective memory should be activated or if this time, against all precedent, the institutional version is the correct one.
