Mexican authorities said Thursday that they arrested an alleged organized crime figure in the western state of Michoacan in connection with last October’s killing of an outspoken leader of the state’s lime growers.
Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said on social media that authorities arrested the man known as “El Botox,” allegedly responsible for extorting lime growers and for various homicides, including the killing of agricultural leader Bernardo Bravo.
A Michoacan state official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the suspect’s full name was César Alejandro Sepúlveda Arellano, leader of a group known as the White Trojans, or Blancos de Troya. The group is known to work with Los Viagras, a criminal organization allied with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
García Harfuch said there were 11 arrest orders for him for extortion and homicide. He has also been accused of attacking authorities with explosives.
Garcia Harfuch, who posted an image of Sepulveda Arellano in handcuffs, called him “a priority target and generator of violence in Michoacan.”
Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch
Last August, Sepulveda Arellano was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla said in a statement that his arrest Thursday represented “an overwhelming blow against extortion” in the state, which is Mexico’s largest producer of limes and avocados.
In October, the body of Bravo, president of the Apatzingan Valley Citrus Producers Association, was found in his vehicle on a road in the area.
Bravo had denounced “organized crime’s permanent commercial hijacking of any commercial activity.”
Two weeks after his killing, a gunman killed popular Uruapan Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo, another outspoken critic of the cartels’ control of Michoacan. A suspect linked to the Jalisco cartel was later arrested.
The two homicides and the popular outcry that followed spurred the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to send more troops to Michoacan.
Last August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income.
Of the various criminal groups operating in Michoacan, several were declared foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration, including United Cartels, the New Michoacan Family and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Cartels in many parts of Mexico have expanded into kidnapping and extortion to increase their income, demanding money from residents and business owners and threatening to kidnap or kill them if they refuse.
In July 2024, a fisheries industry leader who complained of drug cartel extortion and illegal fishing was shot to death in the northern border state of Baja California. Minerva Pérez was killed just hours after she complained of widespread competition from illegal fishing.