Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit, August 13, 2026 – Witness testimony and evidence extracted from seized phones led Nayarit investigators to eight Bahía de Banderas municipal officers and one state officer accused of passing investigative and operational information to a criminal lookout network.
Nayarit Attorney General Ludmila Heredia Verdugo said during a media briefing that the arrests grew out of a July 21 operation in Bucerías. Six men were detained during that operation and later identified by prosecutors as suspected leaders of a lookout structure and a gaming-machine operation in the municipality.
The state prosecutor’s July 22 arrest notice said the six were taken into custody by the Agency of Criminal Investigation on suspicion of money laundering and an offense against public security. The operation occurred near the Bucerías entrance along Boulevard Riviera Nayarit.
One member of that group later became a cooperating witness and provided information that expanded the investigation, Heredia said. Investigators also obtained judicial authorization to extract stored data from seized phones.
The resulting communications allegedly contained details about police investigations, operational movements and results produced by security agencies. Heredia described the information as having been leaked from multiple levels of law enforcement.
The sequence outlined by the prosecutor shows how the case moved from a street-level operation in Bucerías to testimony, forensic phone analysis and identification of police personnel. Investigators initially encountered phone numbers they could not identify. Information supplied by Bahía de Banderas officials allowed them to compare those numbers with municipal personnel records and establish alleged links to specific officers.
The eight municipal detainees include five police officers and three traffic agents. A Nayarit state police officer was also arrested, bringing the total to nine.
Heredia said the matter had been referred to the federal Attorney General’s Office because the allegations involve organized crime. She also said additional arrest warrants concern personnel from other security agencies and municipalities in Nayarit. Prosecutors are presenting the cases gradually as investigators identify the people connected to phone numbers found in the seized data.
At the time of Heredia’s briefing, the detained officers were appearing in an initial charging hearing in Tepic.
The arrests also triggered an immediate disruption inside the Bahía de Banderas police force. More than 300 municipal police and traffic agents stopped working Wednesday and gathered in Valle de Banderas, where they demanded information about the detainees and called on the municipal government to dismiss Security and Traffic Director Luis Alonso Frisby Becerra.
Army personnel and the Nayarit State Highway Police assumed patrol duties and guarded municipal access points during the work stoppage. The Guardia Nacional and other federal units also supported security coverage.
Municipal President José Israel Santillán Castañeda said the municipality would provide legal assistance to the detained personnel and their families while respecting the state and federal investigations. He rejected demands that the government interfere with the judicial process.
The temporary transfer of patrol responsibilities occurred only days after state and federal forces increased their presence across Bahía de Banderas and Compostela following armed incidents along the coastal corridor north of Puerto Vallarta.
The cases are now before judicial authorities while prosecutors continue executing warrants tied to the broader investigation.
