Drug suspect tied to more than 20 killings

‘El Güicho’ allegedly participated in massacre of 13

TIJUANA – The cartel lieutenant captured this week participated in one of the deadliest attacks in the state, the massacre last fall of 13 people at a drug rehabilitation center, a state prosecutor said Wednesday.

In all, state authorities said Héctor Eduardo Guajardo Hernández, 33, known as El Güicho, is a suspect in 44 cases, including the killing of 10 law enforcement officers in various assaults.

The night of Oct. 24, 2010, armed men invaded the Centro de Rehabilitación El Camino, located in an eastern neighborhood, seized a group of patients, lay them face down and shot them to death.

Fermín Gómez, Baja California’s deputy attorney general for organized crime, said Guajardo

participated in that shooting. He said the motive appeared to be revenge against a person or persons at the center believed to have been dealing drugs on the street.

On Monday, state police in Mexicali wounded and captured Guajardo following a chase and shootout. He allegedly ran the financial operations of the Sinaloa cartel in Baja California and two other states.

Gómez said that the state is investigating Guajardo in 21 cases in Tijuana and 23 in Rosarito Beach. The crimes range from homicide to participating in organized crime.

One investigation that stands out involves the shooting death of four Tijuana municipal police officers on Oct. 27, 2009, Gómez said.

Another involves the deadly ambush of Rosarito Beach Police Commander José Antonio Sánchez Velásquez, who was shot on July 27, 2010, he said.

Guajardo also is being investigated in the shooting death of three municipal police officers (Sep. 18, 2009), the murder of a state police agent (June 27, 2010) and a state police investigator (March 18, 2011), he added.

For its part, the state Department of Public Safety, announced that Guajardo was responsible for

transporting illegal drugs, mainly cocaine, from Colombia to various Mexican states.

Intelligence work, following the capture of the alleged trafficker and several of his accomplices, indicate that Guajardo not only operated in Baja California, but was entrusted by cartel leaders to move drugs to Sinaloa and to Sonora.

Authorities said that shortly after Guajardo’s arrest on Monday, two more suspects were taken into custody in Mexicali, one of them his cousin, Medardo Reyes Seberanis Guajardo, 29, and Antonio Molina Gutiérrez, 34. They, in turn, led investigators to four criminal associates in Tijuana.

According to the Department of Public Safety, Seberanis is the possible successor to Guajardo and both ran the criminal organization’s financial operation. They worked in Puerto Peñasco, Mexicali and Tijuana, as well as in Mazatlán.

Since his detention, authorities moved Guajardo from Mexicali’s General Hospital to that city’s military base for security reasons.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com

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