Mayor who was accused of ordering cops to kidnap people gets abducted and executed by gangsters
A mayor was abducted and executed by gangsters only months after she had allegedly instructed cops to kidnap people. Authorities found the body of Florisel Rios on a dirt pathway in the Mexican city of Medellin de Bravo on Wednesday, November 11. Rios was reportedly on her way to the city hall building in Jamapa, Veracruz, when her car was intercepted on a remote road, according to a report by The Sun.
According to local media reports, Rios had been shot twice in the head. State governor Cuitlahuac Garcia said, "We have received the deplorable news of the murder of the mayor of the municipality of Jamapa." Garcia revealed that a preliminary investigation had found that the mayor had most likely known her kidnappers who had forced her to follow them before she was executed by the same people.
The governor said, "It has to do with the circle close to the mayor, derived from criminal proceedings that have been followed against (current) and former municipal servants. The evidence that we have already strengthened a line of investigation, and it has to do, unfortunately, with the mayor's inner circle." Former treasurer Maria Perez and the former director of public works Carlos Perez had been arrested on November 4 on corruption charges but had been released from custody.
The mayor claimed that she had also asked state secretary Eric Cisernos for some extra security as she was scared she would be attacked. Her city's police had also been disarmed, according to Grupo Reforma. The state secretary had shared that the firearms would only be returned if her husband Fernando Hernandez turned himself in. On November 5, a judge had issued a warrant for his arrest on corruption charges.
According to Daily Mail, Hernandez has been accused of misappropriating funds two years ago in 2018 while he was the director of Mexico's National System for Integral Family Development. Hernandez had written following her death, "We are in a Mexico that if we work right, we are wrong. And everything is blamed on organized crime. I love you Florisel and I swear I would have died with you. We would have not gone out alone."
"Now if all those people who found us are happy, God bless all of them who did this to you. We are innocent and I scream to the four winds that we have worked and we knew to save for the old age we always dreamed of. I am sure they will look for me. Do not worry, I will arrive myself," he added.
The mayor's assassination comes around four months after Miguel Castillo, the former police chief of Jamapa had disappeared in July. He has not been seen since. He was only seen once in a video where he had been blindfolded and had accused Rios and other officials of ordering abductions of residents who resided in the area.
Rios however, had described the allegations as totally false. In a statement, the opposition Democratic Revolution Party said that Rios and other mayors had complained of harassment by the state government.