According to at least five military intelligence reports, produced between 2019 and 2022, Hernán Bermúdez Requena, Tabasco’s Security Secretary, appointed by the current Interior Minister, is linked to the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) and other local oil-running groups. Two other police commanders have also been identified by military intelligence. All three are still in office.
It was December 11th, 2019 when then Tabasco governor and now Secretary of the interior (Secretario de Gobernación), Adán Augusto López, appointed Hernán Bermúdez Requena as the new Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (Secretaria de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana, SSPC). One month prior, Bermúdez Requena appeared in a military intelligence report for his alleged links to a criminal group operating in Villahermosa, the state capital.
On December 11th, 2019, the then governor of Tabasco and now Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, appointed Hernán Bermúdez Requena as the new Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (Secretaria de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana, SSPC). One month prior, Bermúdez Requena appeared in a military intelligence report for his alleged links to a criminal group operating in Villahermosa, the state capital.
Three reports from 2021 and one from August of this year linked him to a cell of the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) and to the gang “La Barredora” and to Benjamín Mollinedo Montiel “El Pantera,” a leader of the “huachicoleo” (fuel oil) cartel arrested in September 2021.
The four military reports are part of the millions of emails and attachments that were hacked from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) by the hacktivist group known as Guacamaya, and to which Aristegui Noticias has had access.
August 26th, 2021, Adán Augusto López left the governorship of Tabasco when he was appointed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as Minister of the Interior, replacing Olga Sánchez Cordero, who returned to the Senate.
Hernán Bermúdez Requena, remains as Secretary of Security of Tabasco, the Mexican president’s home state. The current interim governor is Carlos Manuel Merino Campo.
At least three of the documents were produced by the Centro de Regional de Fusión de Inteligencia (CERFI) Sureste, one of the government’s intelligence areas.
Since the evening of Wednesday, October 5th, the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, was sought, but no response was obtained.
On November 12th, 2019, the 30th Military Zone prepared a report addressed to the Intelligence Fusion Center that reported the names, positions and telephone numbers of elements of the Tabasco Attorney General’s Office that “possibly carry out illicit activities” in Villahermosa and had “links to Trinidad Alberto de la Cruz Miranda, alias ‘El Pelón de Playas’, leader of a criminal group in said municipality.
The first official to be mentioned was the director of the Investigative Police, Hernan Bermudez Requena.
The report informs that after the arrest of Trinidad Alberto De la Cruz Miranda, a former state police officer on December 30th, 2019, people from Benjamin Molliendo Montiel, alias El Pantera, request the intervention of Hernan Bermudez Requena in the release of his brother-in-law Francisco Javier Martinez Hernandez, alias Pelón.
Hernán is mentioned as “Comandante H”, who asked Pantera for 500,000 Mexican pesos in exchange for the release of Pelón and other detainees.
The report concludes: “From the central information obtained, it is inferred that there is corruption among officials of the Secretariat of Public Security of the State of Tabasco in collaborating with the release of members of organized crime in exchange for payment, which has repercussions in the fight against organized crime.
On Wednesday night, Bermudez Requena was sought to give his version of the series of military intelligence reports, dated between November 2019 and August 2022, that link him to organized crime.
To which the official responded:
“La Barredora’ is inexistencial (sic), there are many who sign, but here where I see the banners and placards are very common, but we do not do investigation. Here we have no knowledge that there is a cartel and more of that magnitude. There are local delinquents and cannot be called organized crime cartels. As far as the state police are concerned, we focus exclusively on the municipality of Centro (Villahermosa)”.
His statement continued, adding: “We cannot even protect, and well, how can we protect something that we do not have proof of existence (…) I have no knowledge of the existence (of ‘La Barredora’)”.
He concluded his statement by responding to Leonardo Arturo Leyva’s case: “I manage seven thousand police officers. I cannot guarantee that all seven thousand are totally honest, in a corporation there must be everything. And there are also non-conformists. And it could be that they are linked and in some situations in support or as informants for the delinquency, it could be. But I cannot judge as long as I do not have proof (…) here in the Secretariat I do not have any denunciation of him. “
And about the origin of the documents, which have been confirmed by President Lopez Obrador, provided by the hacking that the National Defense suffered:
“If there is something against me, well, at any time they can put me in the dock. And I can answer everything just as I am answering you. But the fact that there are unfounded accusations deteriorates the image. And I also sincerely believe that this, as everyone says, is a hacking and we do not know if this information really comes from Sedena or if the hackers themselves are taking advantage of this to say ‘this is what we found there’. It is an invention, maybe.”
References:
Inteligencia militar vincula con CJNG a mandos policiacos nombrados por Adán Augusto en Tabasco. (2022, octubre 6). Aristegui Noticias. https://aristeguinoticias.com/0510/mexico/inteligencia-militar-vincula-con-crimen-organizado-a-mandos-policiacos-nombrados-por-adan-augusto-en-tabasco/
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