Mexico: Leader of the Knights Templar Cartel Killed

News

Marines have killed the founder of the LaFamilia Michoacana and leader of theKnights Templar, a mythical figure in theMexico underworld, who disappeared in 2010 and was believed dead.

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March 10th, 2014
Cartels Murder

Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, alias "El Chayo" or "the Craziest One" (El Mas Loco) was killed in a shootout with the security forces in Tumbiscatio, Michoacan.

Government sources confirmed the body belonged to El Chayo, who was believed killed in December 2010. Despite claims by the former government of President Felipe Calderon that El Chayo was dead, Monte Alejandro Rubido, of the National System for Public Security, said on Sunday that fingerprint tests had proven beyond doubt that the drug lord had been shot dead by the marines and that it was his body lying in the morgue.

Earlier this month, elements of the Mexico vigilante groups which have taken root in Michoacan, insisted not only was El Chayo alive, but that they were closing in on him. There have been rumors, ever since his "death" at the end of 2010, that El Chayo was still alive and running drug operations. Rumors reached a fever pitch in February that The Craziest One was still alive after one of the drug lord's trusted financial operators was arrested. The vigilante groups, which signed an agreement with federal and regional authorities in January, have been battling the Knights Templar in Michoacan.

InSight Crime analysis

El Chayo has a mythical status in the underworld, and has been hailed by followers as a "narco saint." During his criminal career he has been linked to many different criminal groups, among them the Gulf and Milenio cartels as well as the Zetas. He was a founding member of La Familia Michoacana, a criminal organization that espoused a quasi-religious doctrin, and burst onto the drug-trafficking scene in 2006, tossing severed heads onto a nightclub floor in Michoacan. After the 2010 disappearance of El Chayo, a new group announced itself in March 2011, the Knights Templar. It continued La Familia's cult-like presentation, mixed in with imagery of Crusader knights.

SEE ALSO: El Chayo profile

However during 2014 pressure has mounted on the Knights, from the state and the "self defense" groups. Among the leaders arrested was El Chayo's half-brother, Heliodoro Moreno Anguiano.

The killing of El Chayo is unlikely to signal the end of the Knights Templar. The visible head of the organization, Servando Gomez Martinez, alias "La Tuta," remains at large and delights in appearing in videos, lambasting his enemies, and claiming to speak for the people of Michoacan.

The killing of El Chayo is another feather in the cap of President Enrique Peña Nieto, coming soon afterthe capture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful criminal syndicate in Mexico. As with the capture of Chapo Guzman, it was Mexico's marines that did the heavy lifting, reinforcing their position as the most trusted arm of the security forces.

By Jeremy McDermott. Used with the permisison of InSight Crime

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