Bermúdez faces formal enforced disappearance accusation
Original reporting: El Diario de Juárez
What happened
Tabasco prosecutors moved the enforced disappearance case against former security chief Hernán Bermúdez into its pretrial intermediate phase. The report says another 18 people are implicated; Bermúdez has denied organized crime ties and alleged political persecution.
Reporting and context
Tabasco prosecutors filed a formal accusation against former state security chief Hernán Bermúdez Requena for alleged enforced disappearance, according to El Diario de Juárez. The step follows the close of the supplementary investigation and moves the case into an intermediate phase before a possible oral trial.
State Attorney General Óscar Tonatiuh Vázquez Landeros confirmed the procedural step to local journalists. Prosecutors and the defense will now debate which evidence can be admitted before a trial date is set. Authorities projected that the trial could conclude before the end of the year, the newspaper reported.
El Diario de Juárez reported that investigators and intelligence reports identify Bermúdez, also known as “Comandante H” or “El Abuelo,” as the alleged leader of La Barredora. Investigators allege the network used state and municipal police personnel to operate irregular checkpoints where people were illegally detained, extorted, kidnapped or disappeared. Another 18 people, including former public officials and investigators, are implicated in the same case.
The report put the potential sentence for enforced disappearance at 40 to 60 years. Separately, it said prosecutors sought 154 years in prison in June in parallel cases involving alleged aggravated kidnapping, extortion and criminal association during the administrations of former governors Adán Augusto López Hernández and Carlos Manuel Merino Campos.
Federal prosecutors are also pursuing asset forfeiture over 2.24 million pesos seized in bank accounts linked to Bermúdez, his wife Verónica Encalada Pérez and his brother Humberto Bermúdez Requena. Federal authorities also link businessman Justo Aurelio Rivera Parrazales, recently ordered to face proceedings while in pretrial detention, to the group’s alleged financial network.
Bermúdez remains at El Altiplano prison after his arrest in Paraguay in September 2025 and subsequent extradition to Mexico. In a letter released from prison in August, he denied belonging to organized crime and said the allegations reflected political persecution.
Original report: El Diario de Juárez.