Ardillos Leader Claims That Los Zetas Paid For The Campaign Of AMLO In 2006

Mica for cartelinsider.com

Celso Ortega Jiménez, also known as “El Ardillo Mayor” – one of the brothers leading the criminal group Los Ardillos, who are related to local deputy Bernardo Ortega Jiménez of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) – gave an interview to the digital media Latinus, in which he stated that when he belonged to the cartel of Los Zetas, Óscar Omar Treviño Morales, alias “El Z-42”, ordered him – in Nueva Italia, Michoacán – to support the presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2006, at the time candidate of the coalition ‘For the Good of All,’ made up of the parties of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Labor (PT) and Convergence.

In the broadcast interview on February 15, 2024, during the evening news show hosted by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola Álvarez, “El Ardillo Mayor” stated that Treviño Morales – currently interned at the Federal Social Rehabilitation Center (CEFERESO) Number 1 “El Altiplano”, located in Villa de Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico – told him that if the tabasqueño politician won the Presidency of the Republic, Los Zetas would control “the entire country,” because the current national leader “would hand it over to them,” since “they were paying for the presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, through the PRD.”

Likewise, he indicated that the meeting with Norma Otilia Hernandez Martinez, mayor of Chilpancingo and member of Morena, which lasted at least two and a half hours, was not fortuitous. In addition, she offered to “sell” him the municipal slaughterhouse, in order to control the meat business and, consequently, the main market in the capital of Guerrero. However, according to Ortega Jimenez, this never materialized, as the rival group Los Tlacos did not agree.

In addition, “El Ardillo Mayor” stated that he had met on multiple occasions with an alleged envoy from Felix Salgado Macedonio, senator of the Morena parliamentary group, who is currently seeking reelection in said position as a candidate for the second formula of said party.

Galdino Nava Diaz – former head of the Undersecretary of Regional Development, of the Secretariat of Planning and Regional Development of the Government of the State of Guerrero, led by Evelyn Cecia Salgado Pineda – was the “negotiator” who “was sent by Félix Salgado Macedonio at the time”.

Finally, Ortega Jiménez asserted that in the 2021 elections, “Morena” -he did not say who in that party- asked him to organize municipal committees and in exchange he could choose candidates for some municipalities and for congressional seats. “I have documented, recorded, the negotiations they came to do,” he insisted.

The criminal group Los Ardillos was founded in the year 2000, after the split from the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, and is currently involved in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and homicide, mainly in the Central and Mountain regions of Guerrero.

The Ardillos were disputing territory with the Reds, also splintered from the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. Confrontations between both criminal groups spread in the municipalities of Chilpancingo, Eduardo Neri, Tixtla, and Chilapa.

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Mica

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