Former Tlapa traffic director faces extortion case

El Diario de Chihuahua reports that Simitrio Álvarez Benito, a former director of Traffic and Transportation in Tlapa, Guerrero, was arrested on Sept. 3 and placed under informal pretrial detention in a case involving alleged aggravated extortion. El Diario de Chihuahua says the Public Prosecutor’s Office presented evidence that allegedly links Álvarez Benito to Los Tlacos, an organized-crime group, and that a monitoring judge set a two-month period for supplementary investigation. These are prosecutorial allegations and a preliminary judicial measure, not a final conviction.

According to the translated report, prosecutors allege that Álvarez Benito was associated with the group said to be headed by Onúnma Marquina, known as “El Nencho,” and that he had been close to Tlapa’s former or current mayoral political circle. The source also reports claims from residents that traffic officials extorted motorists through excessive fines, allegedly reaching as much as 60,000 pesos. It says 71 police and traffic officers were arrested in Chilapa and Atlixtac in a related operation, but that 66 were later released for lack of evidence while five remained under investigation.

El Diario de Chihuahua attributes the account to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and local residents. The available material does not establish whether the alleged affiliations or extortion claims will be proven in court, and it does not independently verify the reported number of vehicles found after the detention. The source also contains machine-translated passages with unclear wording, so the exact administrative relationship between Álvarez Benito and the political figures mentioned remains ambiguous.