Jose Luis Abarca and his wife María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa were the financial brains of the criminal organization Guerreros Unidos, allegedly responsible for the disapperance of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa.
According to the statements of Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, “El Chino”, leader of the gang, the former mayor of Iguala controlled half of the municipalities of the northern region of the state.
He explained that since the area is strategic for drug trafficking and to escape operations of the Armed Forces, Abarca bribed the mayors of six neighboring municipalities: Taxco, Cocula, Buena Vista de Cuéllar, Tepecoacuilco, Huitzuco and Teloloapan.
Sidronio Casarrubias assumed the leadership of Guerreros Unidos in July 2014, and went on to collect the debts of his brother Mario, better known as “El Sapo” and founder of the organization. Officials of the Attorney General's Office (PGR) said that the participation of other former officials of Guerrero will be investigated.
Investigations revealed that the liasons between the mayors and the public security directors of the aforementioned municipalities were Raúl Núñez Salgado “El Camperra” and Gildardo López Astudillo “El Gil”, both of them members of Guerreros Unidos.
The “shield” built by the former mayor of Iguala with the support of the municipal police of the northern region of Guerrero was used to contain the entry of the Knights Templar, La Familia Michoacana and Los Rojos cartels.
Some of the detainees said that María de los Ángeles Pineda was the main operator of the criminal activities coordinated from the town hall in complicity with Guerreros Unidos.
In his statement, Casarrubias said that "El Gil" visited Abarca frequently to close deals and define strategies for their criminal operations and added that the former mayor of Iguala owned a building that had a cistern in which he kept 7 million dollars, gold coins and jewelry.