SAN MIGUEL TOTOLAPAN, Mexico, Dec. 15 (UPI) — A vigilante group and the El Tequilero gang have swapped hostages after the captured mother of the gang’s leader urged her son to free the kidnapped engineer in Mexico’s Guerrero state.
Mexican security officials, including state and federal police, oversaw the exchange of hostages, Guerrero Gov. Héctor Antonio Astudillo Flores said.
The El Tequilero gang on Sunday allegedly kidnapped Isauro de Paz Duquem, a well-liked engineer in Guerrero’s San Miguel Totolapan municipality. On Monday, local residents of the San Miguel Totolapan and Ajuchitlán del Progreso municipalities took up arms and detained at least 20 people in response.
Yadira Guillermo García, the wife of the engineer, in a video message proposed swapping her husband with the captured mother of the leader of the El Tequilero gang.
After the initial message did not produce results, the vigilante group released a video message from the gang leader’s mother.
“Look, son. If you have the engineer, deliver him please. If you have him, I believe that you will deliver him. Do it, please,” the mother of Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, the leader of the El Tequilero gang, said Wednesday.
The mother of the gang leader was escorted out of capture by Mexican security officials — a video of which was distributed on social media.
