A leader of a criminal organization in Mexico, who became one of the most wanted in the country for the theft of industrial-scale oil from his gang, was sentenced to 60 years in prison, prosecutors announced on Friday.
Jose Antonio Gepes, a notorious fuel thief accused of inciting a horrific outbreak of violence in the central state of Guanajuato, was arrested in 2020. His arrest was considered one of the greatest successes of President Andres Manuel Ledo.
Nicknamed “El Marro” (“The Sledgehammer”), Gepes was the boss of the Guanajuato-based Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, which was at war with the Jalisco Youth Generation (CJNG) cartel. ), one of the most powerful and violent gangs in Mexico.
Guanajuato’s attorney general’s office said in a Twitter post that a district court had found Gepes and his associates “guilty of kidnapping.”
Gepes was one of the most notorious criminals arrested to date under the presidency of Lopez Obrador, who has vowed to fight the escalation of violence and curb the uncontrolled theft of oil from pipelines by state oil giant Pemex.
The Santa Rosa de Lima cartel was involved in a range of criminal activities in Guanajuato, from drug trafficking to kidnapping. Fuel theft has often been an easy source of revenue in a state that runs through pipelines and hosts a large refinery.
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