• CHARGES: Authorities in the central state of Puebla arrested the new police chief of San Martín Texmelucan (pop. 152,000) on kidnapping for ransom charges, dating back to 2011 and that inexplicably did not appear in his criminal history record.
• ALLEGATIONS: According to state authorities, Luis Francisco Bustamante was accused of kidnapping four people back in 2011. The arrest warrant against Bustamante dates back to 2016, but that did not stop him from getting the top police job of Puebla’s third-largest city.
• LETTER: “At that time, the arrest warrants that reached (the prosecutor’s office) were not input into the general database of judicial sentences…hence he was issued a letter attesting he had no criminal history”, said the state Attorney General office yesterday.
• DATA: According to data presented by NGO Alto al Secuestro, the total number of kidnappings for ransom in Mexico soared to 1,887 in 2019 after having fallen to 1,709 in 2017. The state of Puebla was number four in the total number of kidnappings for ransom in Mexico.
