Just five days after Enrique Alfaro won the election for Governor of Jalisco, two men identified as Armando Gómez Núñez, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (ZMG), and César Iván Briseño Aguirre, a member of the “corruption circle” of the criminal group, began to meet with people close to the governor.
Those meetings were with Juan Pablo Hernández González, operational director of the Zapopan Public Security Police Station, and a person close to Daniel Velasco Ramírez, then state Secretary of Public Security. According to information revealed by the Guacamaya group, who hacked the systems of Mexico’s National Defense, they and other state public security officials held meetings on at least three occasions with both representatives of the CJNG, between December 2018 and January 2019.
A report from the National Intelligence Center (CNI) also warns of the possible involvement of Hugo Luna Vásquez, chief of staff of the Jalisco government, who served as a liaison between the newly elected Governor and acted in favor of the CJNG.
The information leaked by Guacamaya indicates that César Iván Briseño Aguirre “has the task of co-opting public officials to increase the CJNG’s network of corruption”; In addition, he has developed his career in the government field.
Briseño Aguirre, CJNG liaison
César Iván Briseño Aguirre is identified as a “liaison between leaders of the CJNG and authorities from the three levels of government that facilitate and protect the activities of the criminal group.”
Information from the CNI states that his career began within the government sphere. He was a municipal police officer in Guadalajara from July 2002 to November 2007, and then an escort in the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office (PGJ) until August 2009.
He was promoted to an investigative police officer in the same unit, but assigned to the vehicle theft area, a position from which he resigned in 2015. The latest information from the CNI is that until January 2019 he was still working as an active element of the Single Force, a special tactical law enforcement group in the state.
From this position, Briseño Aguirre managed to coordinate at least three meetings with authorities and members of the CJNG, which earned him the status of the main link between the criminal group and the now former Secretary of Public Security of Jalisco, Daniel Velasco Ramírez.
The designated meetings
The first meeting took place on December 11, 2018, when Briseño Aguirre managed to get Gómez Núñez, identified as “Máximo”, to hold a meeting with local police commanders, including Juan Pablo Hernández González, operational director of the Security Police Station from Zapopan.
The CNI even has an image showing the people mentioned in the meeting held at the Toks restaurant in La Gran Plaza in Zapopan.
Days later, on December 17, the CNI obtained information that Briseño Aguirre informed “Máximo” that he hoped to meet in the next few days with Hugo Luna Vázquez, who from 2015 to 2018 was chief of staff of the then Mayor of Guadalajara, Enrique Alfaro, and who also served as MC’s state coordinator.
“Iván confirmed that he offered Hugo Luna five million pesos and specified that it is urgent for him to establish contact.”
The same report mentions that precisely on December 18, 2018, a working meeting of the Committee on Constitutional Points of the Chamber of Deputies was held, where the opinion to create the National Guard was analyzed with Alfonso Durazo, then head of the Secretariat of federal security.
That same day, Briseño Aguirre stated that he would meet “with Solís’ adviser”. “The governor’s escorts promised to withdraw units of the Jalisco Single Force (…) to benefit the criminal group,” the report says.
Ten days later, on December 28, 2018, Briseño Aguirre’s participation was again detected as a link between an authority and a representative of the CJNG “in order to agree on a decrease in violence in the state.”
Days later, the CNI would discover that the “General”, Daniel Velasco Ramírez, then Secretary of Security for Jalisco, who resigned from his post at the end of 2019, was offered half a million pesos, and then half a million more to help protect the criminal organizations.
However, it was not until January 3, 2019, that the CNI was able to document a second meeting between “two soldiers”, alleged links to the “General” and “an envoy by El Abuelo”, in reference to Nemesio Oseguera ‘el Mencho’. ‘, leader of the CJNG, a meeting in which “the coordination schemes by the corruption network and the criminal group were defined.”
In the meeting, of which there is also a photographic record, the CNI managed to confirm the attendance of five people who negotiated the movement of troops at the request of the CJNG operators, as well as “issue timely alerts before the implementation of operations by the security forces; and facilitate violent actions against antagonistic cells”.
According to agents from the CNI investigation station in Jalisco, the offer was to deliver payment of 400,000 pesos and deliver more money later, as well as a penthouse in Puerto Vallarta for Velasco Ramírez, Secretary of Security in the state.
Finally, on January 7, the last meeting documented by the CNI was held, in which Briseño Aguirre himself informed “Máximo” that Velasco is committed to facilitating the operation of the criminal group. Also present at that meeting were at least three unidentified Municipal Police commanders and two alleged Federal Police.
One last piece of information from the CNI refers to the fact that, on December 9, 2018, Briseño Aguirre raised the possibility of meeting “Máximo” with Alejandro Esquer Verdugo, private secretary of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as with General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, of what is no longer known.
Just five days after Enrique Alfaro won the election for Governor of Jalisco, two men identified as Armando Gómez Núñez, leader of . . .
