Anonymous - 4-2-2005 at 10:44 AM
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050402-9...
By Anna Cearley
April 2, 2005
TIJUANA ? Family members gathered yesterday inside the home of Francisco Javier Montejo Oceguera ? the son of a prominent Tijuana politician ? to
mourn his death. He was abducted Thursday just steps away from the house.
Montejo's father is former Tijuana Mayor Carlos Montejo Favela, who in 1989 became the first member of the National Action Party to win election to
the post.
The victim's father also had been linked through a video to a top member of the region's Arellano F?lix drug trafficking group, according to Mexican
news reports.
Thursday morning, a group of men dressed in black grabbed Francisco Montejo as he stood near his house in the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood ? a place
where most homes are just minutes from the beach and where people move to escape the frantic lifestyle of downtown Tijuana.
His body was found later that day in a vacant lot. He had been beaten and suffocated, said Francisco Castro Trenti, who is an administrator of the
state homicide teams in the Tijuana region. He also had been shot in the head, but officials determined that occurred after he had died.
Yesterday, at Francisco Montejo's house, where he lived with his wife and children, family members said they preferred to mourn privately.
"No comment right now; maybe later," said a man who identified himself as Francisco Montejo's father-in-law, as he ushered two other family members
inside the olive-painted house that is surrounded by high walls.
The style of Montejo's abduction may have been similar to that of drug trafficking groups, but Castro said it was premature to link the abduction and
death to them.
Castro said Francisco Montejo was a businessman but declined to say what kind of business, saying it was part of the investigation.
The Arellanos started to work in the region in the mid-1980s, but they received minimal attention from law enforcement until 1993 when they were
linked to the killing of a Catholic cardinal in Guadalajara.
According to the Tijuana newspaper Frontera, Francisco Montejo allegedly brought his father to a ranch sometime in the early 1990s where they met
Benjam?n Arellano, leader of the trafficking group until his arrest in 2002.
Photos of the former mayor and Arellano, taken from a video of the meeting, were published in several Mexican newspapers in 2002. Carlos Montejo, who
was mayor from 1989 to 1992, said the meeting was a coincidence and that he didn't even know who Benjam?n Arellano was at that time, according to
Frontera.