Businessman Jose de Jesus Gallegos Alvarez, 47, was gunned down in his car in an upmarket area of Guadalajara just four days after assuming the high-profile cabinet post.
At the time, Government Secretary Arturo Zamora said the initial investigation indicated that the killing “was probably related to (Gallegos’) business activities before he took the job as secretary of tourism.”
In May, police arrested four men in connection with the slaying. All admitted working for the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion.
At the time Jalisco Attorney General Carlos Najera revealed that Gallegos “gave financial support to a rival cartel” but did not elaborate any further. He stressed that state and federal investigators would need to examine the financial accounts of the former tourism secretary to verify if there were any truth to the claim he had links to a drug cartel.In statements to authorities, one of the men, Jonathan Garcia Garcia (alias “John Perro”), confirmed that Nemesio Oseguera, the leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, ordered the hit on Gallegos because he was laundering money for the rival Caballeros Templarios cartel.
In parts of the statement obtained by local daily Milenio this week, Garcia said it was assumed that Nueva Generación would “lose influence” once Gallegos was installed in office and that “couldn’t be allowed.”
Garcia said the original intention was to kidnap Gallegos but that they were under orders to kill him if he or his drivers resisted.
Gallegos was shot dead after a brief pursuit along Paseo Via Acueducto at around 3:15 p.m. on March 9, 2013.
He was being driven to his home in Puerta de Hierro when he was attacked by gunmen in two vehicles at the crossing with Paseo de los Parques. Gallegos’s driver sped north toward Avenida Patria as the assailants fired on his Toyota Highlander, causing it to crash into another vehicle and come to a standstill near the intersection with Josemaria Escriva.
An eyewitness said one of the assailants then disembarked from his vehicle, walked over to where Gallegos lay and shot him from point-blank range, before returning to his vehicle and calmly driving away. Gallegos’ driver survived the attack and ran to a nearby construction site in search of help.
Investigators found that 16 shots had been fired from two different nine-millimeter handguns. Of these, 13 hit Gallegos’ vehicle, leaving the rear windshield shattered.