Mayor Of Iguala Arrested Over Disappearance of 43 Students: ‘I Couldn't Hide Anymore'

Tuesday morning, former Iguala mayor Luis Abarca, his wife and Noemí Berumen Rodríguez who turned out to be a key accomplice in the hiding of the ‘Imperial Couple’. The Federal Police had already set up outside Berumen’s house after she had frequent phone calls with Abarca’s daughter, Yazareth as well as frequent visits to the house in Iztapalapa that seemed suspicious to the authorities. “The house looked completely abandoned, yet Noemí kept visiting constantly, which is how she became a suspect,” said General Attorney, Jesús Murillo Karam.

Authorities reported that Abarca and his wife were clearly there on a temporary basis, as they only had an air mattress and two suitcases when the police found them. The operation conducted by Enrique Galindo Ceballos on Tuesday morning, happened in three different residences simultaneously, each house taken by 20 federal agents at a time. When the police found the fugitive couple lying down, Abarca’s wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, maintained her arrogance yelling at the police, “Let go of me! Who do you think you are?” although that was the only resistance she showed. The mayor however, took on a more humble attitude and said nothing until later.

Sources say the arrest was quite pacific in light of the current circumstances, without a single gunshot. Reports indicate it was also pretty brief, “The operation and arrests took place in no more than 20 minutes,” said a neighbor of the supposed abandoned house. “They just shut the doors and left the house as if nothing had happened,” she added.

The residence was left with no restrictions or indicators it had to be preserved as a crime scene, or investigation site. And later on, agents who took Abarca said the last words they heard him say were: “I’m tired of hiding,” after confessing he could no longer take the pressure. And while the arrest could bring the government closer to resolving the case of the 43 missing student teachers of Ayotzinapa, the people of Mexico will not be satisfied until they are found.