Women On The Verge Of An Investigation

In Baja California, the 2021 election saw the election of Marina Avila, the first female governor in the state’s political history. Other women won elected office on that ballot, notably three: Norma Bustamante as mayor of the capital, Mexicali; Montserrat Caballero as the first woman elected mayor of Tijuana; and Araceli Brown, who was reelected as mayor of Rosarito City Hall.

And although there are more women in these elected positions in the 2024 election (Miriam Cano in San Quintín, Claudia Agatón in Ensenada, and Rocío Adame in Rosarito), it is the first four who have gained prominence and made a name for themselves, more for the controversy they generated than for the favorable results delivered to the public.

Two of the four, Governor Marina Avila and Mayor Norma Bustamante, do not have visas to enter the United States; The first in May, and the second in August, had their immigration documents issued by the United States revoked. In both cases, this marked the first time in the country’s history that a sitting governor’s tourist visa was revoked by the neighboring country, as was the case with the mayor of the capital.

Since its founding as a Free and Sovereign State in 1952, Baja California had not had a head of the State Executive and another of the state’s capital whose tourist visas to enter the United States have been revoked.

It is also unusual that the other two Morena candidates elected in the 2021 election, Montserrat Caballero and Araceli Brown, are being investigated by authorities in Mexico, the former, and the latter in the United States.

On September 18, the United States Department of the Treasury announced, through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), that it was issuing asset freezes in the United States against nine individuals and 15 companies. Among those mentioned and identified by name and image was—and still appears—the former mayor of Rosarito, Araceli Brown Figueredo, currently a federal representative for the Morena political party in the lower house.

The Morena member was implicated in what the Treasury Department titled “The Smuggling Empire: The Rosarito Beach Network,” which also included two well-known businessmen: Candelario Arcega Aguirre, the oft-named and denounced protégé of Rosarito mayoral offices, who was even arrested by the Army in 2009; and entertainment entrepreneur Jesús González Lomelí.

González Lomelí, a partner in several companies with assets frozen in the United States, is alleged to be a high-profile money launderer, precisely using his own businesses. The Americans maintain that he had ties to “a political operative,” Candelario Arcega, who, through the mayor at the time, Araceli Brown, secured protection for the criminal cells of the Sinaloa Cartel, part of the Los Mayos wing.

Although the Government of the Republic, through the Financial Intelligence Unit, initially issued a statement noting that, like the United States, they would freeze the assets of those mentioned, they soon backed down; at least in the case of the former mayor, because it is now known, through injunctions filed by Candelario Arcega, that his accounts were frozen.

On September 17, 2025, a request for information from the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), signed by a Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office agent, arrived at Tijuana City Hall. The request was for information on organized crime filed with the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (FEMDO).

They requested information on five individuals: Montserrat Caballero Ramírez, Daniel Caballero Ramírez, Juan Manuel Gastélum Rivera, Miguel Ángel Bujanda, and Ángeles Dolores Durán Ricalde.

Regarding ZETA, based on unofficial confirmations, the Tijuana City Hall, through the Municipal Audit Office, responded to the FGR’s request and sent the requested information within 24 hours, as requested.

Other documents have been sent for the integration of this file, including to the United States Embassy in Mexico, since the framework of the FGR investigation links those under investigation and former officials of the Tijuana City Council when Caballero was mayor with drug trafficking, particularly with a cell headed by Pablo Huerta Nuño, known as “El Flaquito,” who was arrested on June 17, 2024, in Tijuana, and recently extradited to the United States.

Just as US authorities accused former mayor Araceli Brown of providing protection for Los Mayos cells, FGR authorities in Mexico point out, in the FEMDO investigation, that former Tijuana mayor Montserrat Caballero and her team had ties to a cell of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

In both cases, in two countries, the investigations are ongoing, according to OFAC and FGR documents, copies of which are published in this edition.

Never before in Baja California’s political history have four current or former governors, let alone four women, been on the verge of investigation, and some have already been investigated. These are four Morena politicians who came to power in the 2021 election. Two without a tourist visa for the United States, Governor Marina Ávila and Norma Bustamante, the mayor of Mexicali; and two facing ministerial investigations, one in Mexico, Montserrat Caballero, and the other in the United States, Araceli Brown.

Now, Morena, at least in Baja California, is making history, and it’s not the good kind of history either. 

Source: Zeta Tijuana