This Wednesday, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) established the link with the trial of businessman Jacobo Reyes León, alias Yaicobpartner of Raúl Rocha Cantú, owner of Miss Universe. The advance in the criminal process comes just hours after Reyes León’s arrest in central Mexico City. He was the subject of an arrest warrant for his involvement in the commercial network of Rocha Cantú, also head of the smuggling network that transported fuel and weapons across the border, and which, in recent weeks, was under the protection of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime.
The FGR reported in a statement that Reyes León is accused of organized crime, arms trafficking and fuel theft, some of the charges that Cantú also faces. And he also said that the detainee is already in informal pretrial detention, held in the Altiplano, a prison located about 20 kilometers north of Toluca, in the state of Mexico.
Reyes is identified as one of the main protagonists of the telephone calls in which investigators intervened and in which he speaks openly about all the operations. Authorities describe Reyes as a businessman with political and judicial influence. In addition to overseeing fuel trafficking from Guatemala to Querétaro, he was also responsible for managing the network’s relationship with the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (FEMDO), where an official, Mari Carmen Ramírez Rodríguez, was paid to alert him of investigations and complaints against his organization.
In fact, he appears in video recordings in which he meets Ramírez, whom he calls La Fiscal, in front of the FEMDO offices and also in a restaurant to pay her in cash. In exchange, she gave him copies of the investigation files relating to Raúl Rocha. He also paid up to 120,000 pesos per month to other prosecutorial contacts. The owner of Miss Universe paid Reyes up to 2 million pesos for this work.
The now detained man had filed an amparo appeal in Mexico City to avoid his capture, who until four days ago had not been admitted for treatment. Finally, authorities in the capital captured him in the Guerrero neighborhood on Monday, according to the SSCP document. The charges against Reyes concern “organized crime with the aim of committing crimes related to the trafficking of firearms and hydrocarbons,” with the aggravating circumstance of having been a public official in the past.
Before directing each of the network’s criminal activities and paying members’ salaries, Reyes served as director of citizen security and commissioner of public security for the municipality of Acolman, in the state of Mexico, in 2019. He also ran as a PRD candidate for municipal president of the neighboring town of San Martín de las Pirámides in the 2021 elections.
Reyes’ modus operandi consisted of being in contact with partners in Guatemala to cross the oil on livestock boats to transport containers of up to 1,000 liters to fill Mexican pipes across the border. The cargo arrived by road to the operational centers in Querétaro, at properties called El Patio and La Espuela, where it was stored for sale. There, they could even lower it so that it works better before putting it into circulation at gas stations.
At the same time, he also bought and sold “weapons of war” in large quantities, in operations that included at least 50 firearms such as Glock, Sig Sauer, Hatzan, Mendoza shotguns and revolvers. He did this through front security companies to obtain transportation permits. He was helped by his wife, Jeny Guzmán Cintora, who lent his bank accounts to receive deposits of up to 900,000 pesos and avoid the SAT.
This is not the first time Reyes has been arrested. He had already been handcuffed in February this year during a search of his home on Fresnillo Street in Mexico City. Officers found him with a pair of weapons used exclusively by the military and pills containing fentanyl.
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