MEXICO CITY — Authorities arrested 26 people Saturday in a rural town in western Mexico where violence has increased in recent days due to the actions of criminal groups that have refined their attacks by using drones loaded with explosives has.
During an operation involving elements of the army, the National Guard, the Civil Guard and the Michoacán state prosecutor’s office, 20 men and six women were arrested in the town of La Ruana, the State Security Secretariat said in a statement.
Authorities seized more than half a dozen long guns and magazines of ammunition, the statement said.
Those arrested have been made available to the public prosecutor’s office, which will determine whether they belong to a criminal organization. Several criminal groups operate in the region, including the powerful Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, Los Viagras and Los Caballeros Templarios.
The operation came after a week of intense violence in La Ruana, where residents and Buenavista municipality mayor Sergio Báez reported four drone strikes with explosives.
Although the federal government sent more than 2,000 soldiers and National Guardsmen to Michoacán this month to bolster security and confront criminal groups, violence continues in the state, according to residents.
Former community leader Hipólito Mora was assassinated in an attack in La Ruana last June. Mora was one of the last surviving leaders of Michoacán’s armed self-defense movement, in which farmers and ranchers banded together between 2013 and 2014 to drive the Knights Templar cartel from the state.
According to the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, Michoacán is one of the six states where half of the country’s murders are concentrated, along with Guanajuato, Baja California, Mexico, Jalisco and Chihuahua.
