They called him El Chopa or Señor de Vallarta. Saúl “N”, one of the heads of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) was killed on Friday afternoon during a confrontation with federal forces in Marina Vallarta, one of the most exclusive areas of the state of Jalisco.
According to official information, El Chopa was traveling with his escort identified as El Moi, who was unharmed by the armed attack and was transferred to the Attorney General’s Office in Guadalajara by helicopter.
The authorities had been on the heels of the capo for three months, who is linked to the murder of the former governor of Jalisco, Aristóteles Sandoval , on December 18, 2020.
But on Friday afternoon, the National Guard no longer gave him a choice. A wide deployment of agents of the corporation broke into the area of high influence of the criminal organization. The leader of the cartel in Puerto Vallarta welcomed the National Guard with machine gun bursts, which led to a confrontation.
Chopa and his escort were arrested; however, Saul required hospitalization for gunshot wounds. Later, IMSS personnel, located on Melchor Ocampo Avenue, reported the death of Chopa.
In social networks, users shared a wide deployment of armed forces outside the clinic, which raised the alarms of the population. They also shared videos of the shooting.
El Chopa was not just anyone. His power extended from South America to the United States, he was also considered a high-ranking capo within the CJNG and compadre of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, top leader of the criminal group.
Among his functions was to coordinate the financial aspect of Mencho, as well as the supply of weapons and tactical equipment to criminal cells with a presence in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí.
Just last Wednesday, the federal authorities announced that Chopa was in the same bar where Sandoval Díaz was executed.
According to the details, the capo and the former president were sitting at adjacent tables in the Distrito 5 bar, owned by businessman José Manuel Sánchez Cruz, Manu Vaquita, who was arrested last week for ordering the site to be cleaned after the murder and before police had arrived to begin an investigation.
Sandoval entered the business at 10:00 p.m. on December 17, accompanied by two men and a woman. He sat, as can be seen in videos, next to a criminal leader identified as El Chopa, who at 12:30 am, left the site to meet in a pharmacy with a couple of men, who were traveling aboard a vehicle seen during Sandoval’s execution.
At 1:21 a.m., the politician went to the bathroom that was on the first floor of the bar and when going down the stairs a subject approached him and shot him three times, hitting him in the neck and back.
Sandoval was taken to a hospital by his escort; however, he was pronounced dead on arrival. At around 1:39 a.m., the cleaning of the bar began on the instructions of Manu Vaquita.
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