Cancún, Quintana Roo -
In December 2011, Ximena Osegueda Magana, 39, and her boyfriend Alejandro Honorio Santamaria, 38, went missing in a remote area of Oaxaca state.
Several weeks later their bodies were unearthed along a beach near Huatulco. Ximena, an aspiring linguist, was a Ph.D. candidate in Romance Languages at the University of British Colombia. She had already earned an undergraduate and a master's degree at McGill University.
In a curious twist to the case, both bodies were discovered by Ximena's former husband, Canadian national Jacy Wright, who knew the area well and immediately traveled to Mexico to assist in the search for the couple. Ximena held dual citizenship.
MGR's original story is here.
The Quintana Roo state prosecutor has announced that one of the alleged murderers, Rosalino Omar García Fuentes, 23, was taken into custody on a Oaxaca arrest warrant yesterday. He was working for a private company which provided security services at Cancún International Airport. Authorities said García had been employed there for three months.
García is from Salinas Cruz, Oaxaca. The city is a major seaport, and the state's third largest.
Prosecutors described García as a sicario (executioner) for a Oaxaca cell of the Los Zetas drug cartel, one of Mexico's most violent. Three others assisted him in the brutal murders, in which the victims were first bound and then had their throats slit. Three of the executioners killed the fourth soon after, together with his girlfriend. The latter two were buried on the same beach.
García Fuentes and the other assailants were eventually captured, but he managed to escape a penal facility. He fled to Cancún, where he had been living for some time, according to authorities.
García, who has already been returned to Oaxaca, is charged with homicide and aggravated robbery. Prosecutors have not offered a motive for the crimes, but Jacy Wright told CBC in January 2012 that he suspected the victims crossed paths with regional narcotics traffickers who came ashore on the same beach, which he described as beautiful but remote. The Los Zetas team may have killed the couple for no other reason than they wanted to use their car, while stealing cash and other items of value. The vehicle was found abandoned days later at Oaxaca's Xoxocotlán International Airport.
Cancún International Airport, where García Fuentes was arrested, is regarded by many experts as one of the most security compromised in Mexico.
© MGR 2014. All rights reserved. This article may be cited or briefly quoted with proper attribution or a hyperlink, but not reproduced without permission.
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