Mexico City, Jan 19 (Inditop.com/EFE) The severed head of a man was found at the tomb of Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, who died last month in a shootout with marines, authorities said.
The head belonged to Adalberto Gurrola, 29, said a spokesman in the Sinaloa state Attorney General’s (AG) Office Monday, adding that the victim had no criminal record.
Gurrola’s family said he worked at a food-processing plant in his native Sinaloa.
The AG office spokesman said Gurrola went missing Saturday after leaving his home with several friends.
His decapitated body was found Sunday morning near the grave of drug trafficker at Jardines de Humaya cemetery in Culiacan, the state capital. Gurrulo’s head – with a rose stuck in one ear – was left about 30 metres away at the tomb of Beltran Leyva.
Beltran Leyva, originally a top lieutenant of Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman, established his own drug-trafficking outfit after falling out with his erstwhile boss.
Within a fairly short time, the Beltran Leyva organisation grew wealthy enough to put Mexico’s drug czar on the payroll for around $400,000 a month.
Last month, Mexican marines tracked Arturo Beltran Leyva to a luxury condominium complex in Cuernavaca, a resort town near Mexico City, and their attempt to arrest him set off a ferocious gunbattle that left the kingpin dead.
Amid a heavy military presence at the cemetery, neither his parents nor siblings were on hand to see Beltran Leyva laid to rest inside a $1.5 million, gold-plated coffin.
Elaborate memorials are a common sight in the cemeteries of Sinaloa, birthplace of the founders of Mexico’s leading drug cartels.
A struggle for dominance pitting the cartels against each other and the Mexican security forces is blamed for more than 15,000 deaths since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon gave the military primary responsibility for the drug war.
