MEXICO CITY (AFP) – A suspected drug cartel boss allegedly linked to the disappearance a decade ago of 43 college students was arrested in Mexico after being released from prison in 2019, authorities said on Friday.
Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, alias ‘El Gil’, is an alleged leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel, accused of being behind the disappearance and suspected murders of the students from Ayotzinapa teachers’ college in 2014.
Lopez Astudillo had been arrested in September 2015 in the southern city of Taxco, Guerrero state, about 35 kilometres north of the town of Iguala from where the students vanished.
“Gildardo Lopez Astudillo was detained,” a federal security source with knowledge of the case told reporters on Friday, asking for his name not to be used because he was not authorised to speak to media. Lopez Astudillo had been transferred to the Altiplano maximum security prison in Mexico state, the source said.
He was arrested on charges of “organised crime”, although the investigation could be expanded, the source said.
