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A Mexican gang seized three officials in the central state of Morelos on Monday in order to force authorities to release one of the gang’s high-ranking members, who had been detained hours earlier.<\/b><\/p>\n
The attorney-general’s office in Morelos said it had arrested a member of the Pueblos Unidos criminal gang, after carrying out a raid as part of its fight against extortion.<\/p>\n
Pueblos Unidos retaliated by capturing three people employed by the attorney-general’s office and holding them hostage.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the office said that it released the detained suspect in order to safeguard the lives of its staff, but stressed that the kidnapping of its employees would not go unpunished.<\/p>\n
The gang released all three employees on Monday evening local time, the statement added. One was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound but was in a stable condition.<\/p>\n
The decision to release the detained gang member followed official guidelines, which say the lives of kidnap victims have to be put first, according to the statement.<\/p>\n
Criminal gangs in Mexico often unleash a wave of violence in an attempt to force a release after one of their leaders is arrested.<\/p>\n
In 2019, hundreds of gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel flooded into the city of Culiac\u00e1n in northern Mexico<\/a> following the arrest of Ovidio Guzm\u00e1n, the son of the cartel’s infamous founder, Joaqu\u00edn “El Chapo” Guzm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n They erected burning roadblocks and engaged in deadly gunfights with security forces.<\/p>\n The violence was such that the president at the time, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, personally ordered the release of Ovidio Guzm\u00e1n<\/a>. <\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Obrador said that he had given the order “so as not to put the population at risk”.<\/p>\n “The capture of a criminal is not worth more than people’s lives,” he added. <\/p>\n Guzm\u00e1n was recaptured in 2023 and extradited to the United States. <\/p>\n More recently, the killing of one Mexico’s most wanted criminals, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, in February of this year triggered retaliatory attacks from his cartel in 20 Mexican states.<\/p>\n President Claudia Sheinbaum deployed thousands of soldiers to the states affected to quell the violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n