El Chapo Guzmán Collaborator Arrested For Kidnapping Of PAN Lawmaker

La Jornada reported on Wednesday that Mexican authorities have captured a close collaborator of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who is accused of orchestrating the 2010 kidnapping of a senator and former candidate for the Mexican presidency. Officials did not release the full name of the suspect, saying the Secretary of Government would release full details on the case in coming hours, but said the man known as “El Pelacas” had been in charge of Sinaloa cartel operations in the states of Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco and maintained connections with the Centro cartel, which operates out of Mexico City.

The May 2010 kidnapping of Diego Fernández de Cevallos, a lawmaker with the conservative National Action Party (PAN), as he arrived at his ranch in the state of Querétaro caused consternation among Mexican politicians in the Senate and Assembly, who are rarely the targets of cartel attacks. He was released seven months and six days later after his family paid several million dollars in ransom money – and after his captors released a communique which spoke of de Cevallos in past tense.

Proceso writes that Mexican Justice Department (PGR) officials said that El Pelacas’ name first arose in connection with de Cevallos’ kidnapping in August 2011, when the captured leader of the drug gang La Mano con Ojos (“The Hand with Eyes”) testified that he was responsible for planning and carrying out the attack.