Dalia Santana Pineda, the mayor of the town of Huetamo in the state of Michoacán, is accused of organizing the murder of her friend, Antonio Granados Gómez, in April 2013.
Police say she tricked him into going to El Venchy, a Chinese restaurant, where he was shot to death, allegedly on her orders, Univision reports. According to José Martín Godoy Castro, attorney general of Michoacán, the murder was a result of a personal dispute between the two.
She is also accused of siphoning 20 percent of all city employees’ salaries to give to Knights Templar leader Servando Gómez Martínez, also known as La Tuta (The Teacher), according to Univision.
Santana is Michoacán’s fourth mayor this year to be arrested for alleged links to the Knights Templar, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. Her political ally Jesús Reyna García, the state’s former interim governor, was arrested in May for suspected links to the Knights Templar after an extended detention for suspected organized crime connections.
Federal police and military forces began operations in January to purge Michoacán of both the Knights Templar and vigilante groups that had been created to resist them.
