Criminals Make Up Large Part of State of Michoacan's Vigilante Groups: Prosecutor Fox News Latino
go to original January 1, 2016

The chief prosecutor in the western Mexico state of Michoacán said this week that criminals made up a large percentage of the "self-defense" vigilante movement that sprang up nearly three years ago to challenge a local drug cartel.

The comments by Michoacán state prosecutor José Martín Godoy were the most open recognition yet the groups that arose in 2013 to fight the Knights Templar cartel included a large number of former gang members, many known as "forgiven ones" after apologizing for their crimes.

Godoy told local media that about half the vigilante movement's leaders were honest, but the other half were drug traffickers or other criminals.

"In the self-defense groups, half of them rose up to create conditions of peace and tranquility and detain the criminal groups, but the other half, and the public knows this, were the well-known 'forgiven ones' who were part of a criminal group," Godoy said.

"There were a lot of people taken in to these (vigilante) groups, who in the end were involved in the criminal activities, in (synthetic drug) laboratories and drug trafficking," he said.

Read the rest at Fox News Latino

Photo: AP/Bernandino Hernández

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