EX-LEADER OF GROUP TIED TO MURDER OF THREE U.S. SIBLINGS PUSHED FOR MATAMOROS MAYOR BY LETY SALAZAR

By Juan Montoya

The Matamoros official who was in charge of Mayor Leticia Salazar's paramilitary force El Grupo Hercules – signaled in playing a major role in the murder of three U.S. citizens – is being pushed by her administration to replace her as mayor under the PAN banner.

That has led to the mother of the three siblings from Progreso, Texas, to denounce the action and to ask for an audience before Arely Gómez, Mexico's Procuradora General de la República (Attorney General) demanding to now whether Jose Mariano Vega has been cleared of having ordered the murder of her children.

(In the graphic at right, Vega is the man in paramilitary garb speaking at the podium while Salazar – also in fatigues – listens on.) 

Raquel Alvarado said those responsible for the death of her children Alex,22, Jose Angel, 21, and  Erica Alvarado Rivera, 26, have never been charged. She said that eyewitnesses last October 2014 told her and her husband that the last time they were seen was as they were carried away in the back a pickup truck in the custody of the Grupo Hercules.

Alvarado wrote Ricardo Anaya, president of the PAN's National Committee to protest the candidacy of Vega for the mayorship of the city of Matamoros.

In her letter, Alvarado wrote Anaya that "I have seen your television ads where you state you are part of a new generation of politicians who believe in Mexico and won;t tolerate corruption, That's why I am writing you to tell you that you are about to commit the most vile and inhuman act of corruption and immorality by permitting the filing of the candidacy for the mayorship of Matamoros of  Joe Mariano Vega who I have accused – along with Leticia Salazar and her ex-social development director Luis Biasi for their roles in the cold-blooded murder of (my children)."

After more than a year and a half, the investigation into the murders has not yielded any suspects despite the fact that El Grupo Hercules under Vega was identified as having taken custody of the siblings and that their vehicles were found in the impound lot of Biasi's forwarding company.

Last year, Alvarado protested Salazar's participation in the Charro Days parade with a banner calling Salazar an "assassin" and demanding answers on the fate of her children.

 This year she said she had refrained from staging a similar protest as an act of goodwill between the cities.

Instead of riding alone in a convertible, Salazar rose with Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez in a heavily guarded car surrounded by Brownsville Police Department officers.

"We find it reprehensible  that Martinez acted as a personal bodyguard for the Matamoros mayor," said Alvarado's legal representative.