Mexico arrests cartel figure in disappearance of 43 students

The Mexican authorities have arrested a gang leader who they say was a key figure in the disappearance of 43 students past year in the town of Iguala in Guerrero state, BBC News reports.

Lopez Astudillo, also known as “El Cabo Gil”, was arrested on Wednesday while carrying a fake ID and ammunition, said Mexico’s national security commissioner.

The arrest – widely reported in local media and expected to be officially confirmed at a press conference scheduled for Thursday evening – comes at a time when the government is struggling to establish the credibility of its investigation into what happened to the students.

Federal investigators concluded that the execution of the students was ordered based on that information due to ongoing territorial battles between the two gangs. The photographs of the 84 were shot between April and August of 2015 in the city of Iguala and surrounding towns.

Casarrubias allegedly instructed him to defend their turf.

The office has said because Guerreros Unidos thought the students were members of a rival gang, they murdered them and then disposed of the bodies by burning them at a rubbish dump outside the city.

Despite President Enrique Peña Nieto agreeing to meet the relatives of the 43 students and requesting government authorities to take into consideration the experts’ findings, the detention of Lopez Astudillo could provide a swift and convenient end to the Ayotzinapa case if authorities charge the gang leader with the disappearance of the 43 students.

Their position has now been powerfully backed by a 560-page report released earlier this month and written by a group of independent experts assembled by the InterAmerican Commission for Human Rights.

Prosecutors say corrupt municipal police in Iguala abducted the students after the young men seized buses for their political activities. The students were killed and, according to the government’s investigation, it was Lopez Astudillo who gave the order to have their bodies incinerated in a garbage dump.