Emilio Valdez Mainero, 62—identified in the 1990s as a leader of the Arellano Félix Cartel’s (CAF) armed wing—was reported missing to authorities in Tijuana, Baja California, after all contact with him was lost last Friday.
According to the report filed with the Missing Persons Unit of the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), Valdez Mainero was last seen on the afternoon of August 28 at an eatery in the Zona Río district and, subsequently, near Caliente Stadium following the match between Xolos and Pumas. After he failed to return home and could not be reached by phone, family members contacted the authorities to request the issuance of a formal missing person alert.
Once nicknamed “El CP,” Valdez Mainero was part of the criminal group known to security agencies as “Los Narcojuniors.”
This cell was composed of young men from wealthy families, business circles, and military backgrounds in Tijuana; they were recruited by Ramón Arellano Félix to carry out executions and operational security tasks. His father was a Mexican Army colonel who served in the Presidential Guard.
In September 1996, Valdez Mainero was arrested in San Diego, California. Federal court records from the Southern District of California linked him to high-profile executions committed during the criminal group’s turf wars and charged him with conspiracy to traffic drugs into the United States.
After serving a sentence of nearly two decades in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities, he was released in November 2015 and returned to live in Tijuana. Recently, reports from state security panels indicated a possible link between the individual and the internal realignments and disputes over territorial control in the border region.
Security agencies are keeping investigation files open in order to locate the individual and determine whether they were the victim of an unlawful deprivation of liberty.
