By Juan Montoya
A South Texas mother whose three children were kidnapped and murdered by Mexican security forces in the Fall of 2014 has said she is happy, but not fully satisfied, with the arrest of the Luis Alfredo Biasi, the former Secretary of Social Development under Matamoros PAN Mayor Norma Leticia Salazar Vazquez.
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The decomposing bodies of the kidnapped Americans, Erica, Alex and Jose Angel Alvarado, ages 26, 22 and 21 respectively, as well as the body of a Mexican citizen named Jose Castaneda, were found on October 29, each with hands and feet bound and a single gunshot wound to the head.
Raquel Alvarado has placed the responsibility of her children's and Castañeda's murder at the feet of Mexican Marines and Grupo Hercules, the paramilitary group that acted as the mayor's bodyguards.
"One of them has already fallen," Alvarado said. "I am never giving up in seeking justice for my children. I have faith that the others, including the mayor Salazar, who I hold responsible for their death will eventually be brought to justice."
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(That's the siblings' mother at left confronting Salazar in the 2015 Charro Days parade the following year.)
Additionally, Biasi has been linked to a vast extortion group that has targeted Guatemalan transmigrantes for extortion and for being the leader of a smuggling ring of consumer goods from the United States for sale in the interior of Mexico. The former city administrator has also been charged with engaging in organized crime.
He is currently free on bond for federal tax evasion.
According to the state and federal government, the allegations that the killings of the kidnapped Americans were carried out by members of Grupo Hercules, created by the mayor of crime-plagued Matamoros came from witnesses who said they saw the three Americans forced into a Grupo Hercules van by men dressed in police uniforms.
Days later, when the bodies of the three siblings including their Mexican companion were found near El Control, Tamps. executed with a singe gunshot to the head and bearing signs of torture.
Also, there are more than 376 complaints from Matamoros residents who claim they were defrauded by Biasi though his customs broker business which promised to nationalize U.S. vehicles and insntead stole their money.
Among the investigations into Biasi's organized crime activity, was the probe into the apprehension of two workers they sent to Mexico city with $1.6 million pesos with the intent of delivering to a lawyer for the purchase of a ranch in Mexico. The two workers, Jaime Medrano and Juan Eduardo Rodríguez said it was Biasi and the former mayor Leti Salazar who sent them with the money to Mexico.
Given the number and seriousness of the charges against the former Matamoros administrator, the judge in charge could decide to incarcerate him in Cuidad Victoria, or to send him to a high-security federal facility somewhere in the country.