Security Minister Omar García Harfuch announced Wednesday that federal authorities had arrested various officials from the state of Morelos, including the mayor of one municipality and the former mayor of another.
A total of five men and one woman were detained in Morelos and Querétaro during raids that were carried out as part of Operación Enjambre (Operation Swarm), a federal security strategy aimed at combatting collusion between organized crime and municipal government officials. More than 140 officials, including a number of mayors, have reportedly been arrested as part of Operación Enjambre since it began in November 2024.
En el marco de la Estrategia Nacional contra la Extorsión y como parte de la continuidad de la Operación Enjambre, en Morelos, elementos de @FGRMexico @SSPCMexico y @GN_MEXICO_, con información del Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, cumplimentaron
4 órdenes de aprehensión… pic.twitter.com/PG6fxbeKRa— Omar H Garcia Harfuch (@OHarfuch) May 20, 2026
Those detained on Wednesday were:
- Agustín Toledano Amaro, mayor of Atlatlahucan, a municipality about 50 kilometers east of Cuernavaca.
- Irving Sánchez Zavala, former mayor of Yecapixtla, a municipality about 60 kilometers east of Cuernavaca.
- Horacio Zavaleta Malacara, municipal secretary in Cuautla, a municipality about 50 kilometers southeast of Cuernavaca.
- Jonathan Espinoza Salinas, municipal treasurer in Cuautla.
- Pablo Adrián Portillo Galicia, a businessman and high-ranking municipal official (oficial mayor) in Cuautla.
- Arisbel Rubí Vázquez Amaro, a former mayoral candidate in Atlatlahucan.
García Harfuch announced four of the arrests on social media on Wednesday morning.
“Within the framework of the National Strategy against Extortion and as part of the continuation of Operación Enjambre, in Morelos, officers of the Federal Attorney General’s Office, the Security Ministry and the National Guard, with information from the National Intelligence Center, executed four arrest warrants,” he wrote, adding that the mayor of Atlatlahucan and the former mayor of Yecapixtla were among those detained.
García Harfuch also wrote that “actions” aimed at arresting the mayor of Cuautla, Jesús Corona Damián, were continuing.
On Thursday afternoon, the security minister told a press conference that six people accused of involvement in organized crime had been arrested.
He also said that the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) would block the bank accounts of 22 individuals and 10 companies related to a “corruption network” in Morelos.
“Among them are mayors, officials from the Cuautla municipal government and economic, political and social actors allegedly linked to a regional operator of the Pacific Cartel in the eastern region of [Morelos],” García Harfuch said, using an alternative name for the Sinaloa Cartel.
He subsequently confirmed that the alleged cartel operator he was referring to was Júpiter Araujo Bernard, a man known as “El Barbas” (The Bearded One). García Harfuch said that the UIF would also add Araujo and other “principal targets” to its list of “blocked persons.”
The allegation outlined by García Harfuch is that municipal officials in Morelos, including at least some of those arrested on Wednesday, and the mayor of Cuautla, have aided and abetted the criminal operations of the Sinaloa Cartel in the central Mexican state, including extortion schemes. There is video evidence that Corona, the mayor of Cuautla, and Toledano, the mayor of Atlatlahucan, and other officials met with “El Barbas” in 2024. Both mayors were backed by opposition parties when they were elected in recent years, namely the PAN, the PRI and the PRD. However, Corona first assumed the mayorship of Cuautla after winning a 2019 election as a candidate for Morena, Mexico’s current ruling party.
Cuautla, the second-largest city in Morelos, has been described as a “capital of extortion” by crime journalist Ioan Grillo. García Harfuch said on Wednesday that extortion in Cuautla and other municipalities in eastern Morelos has “directly affected” many people and sectors, including business owners, public transport operators, “productive sectors” and members of ordinary families.
FGR: Presence of organized crime detected in at least 8 municipal governments in Morelos
On Wednesday night, Ulises Lara, a special prosecutor in the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), said that the FGR’s organized crime unit (FEMDO) had detected the presence of organized crime within the municipal governments of at least eight municipalities in Morelos, including Cuautla, Atlatlahucan and Yecapixtla.
He said that the arrests on Wednesday were possible thanks to investigations carried out by FEMDO.
Lara said that an organized crime group — allegedly the Sinaloa Cartel — “managed to penetrate the structure” of municipal governments in Morelos by providing campaign funds to candidates who “today serve as public officials.”
He also said there is “information” that members of that criminal group “intimidated” the political opponents of the candidates they supported.
“It is very important to note that … as a result of such infiltrations into municipal structures — which were aimed at securing permissiveness and freedom to commit criminal activities — the state of Morelos has faced various situations of violence, in which crimes such as extortion … as well as homicide, drug dealing, robbery and kidnapping occurred,” Lara said.
With reports from Sin Embargo, Aristegui Noticias, El País and El Economista
