Mexican mayor with alleged links to cartel training camp arrested

Women Mayors writers
May 14
4 min read

Mexican government dismisses claims that Izaguirre Ranch was an extermination camp

Teuchitlán May José Ascensión Murguía is facing charges in connection with the Izaguirre Ranch, allegedly used as a drug cartel training camp.

May 2025: José Ascensión Murguía, mayor of Teuchitlán, Jalisco, Mexico, was arrested on 3 May 2025 and is facing charges of involvement in the criminal activities that the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) carried out inside a ranch named Rancho Izaguirre. Charges include forced disappearance of persons and alleged acts of organised crime.

José Ascensión Murguía Santiago has been mayor of the municipality of Teuchitlán, a town of around 4,000 inhabitants in the state of Jalisco, since 2021, the year in which the ranch allegedly began operating as a training centre for the CJNG, according to the public prosecutor, Alejandro Gertz Manero. José Ascensión Murguía is a dentist and had previously served as mayor of Teuchitlán between 2012 and 2015.

The arrest of José Ascensión Murguía has exposed a network of alleged criminal links between local power and the CJNG. According to the Attorney General's Office (FGR), Murguía allegedly collaborated directly with cartel leaders in forced disappearance activities and the handling of human remains at the Rancho Izaguirre facility, known mostly as the ‘ranch of horror’ or ‘the little school of terror’.

Rancho Izaguirre, located in the vicinity of the municipality, was identified as a criminal training centre for the CJNG. At the beginning of March 2025, collectives of searching mothers located skeletal remains, burnt clothes and cremation structures at the site. The FGR has classified it as a systematic place for the disappearance and elimination of people.

The CJNG is a transnational criminal group that emerged from the Milenio Cartel after a series of assassinations, arrests and internal fractures. It is known for its aggressive use of violence and public relations campaigns. Despite the capture of some of its top leaders, it remains one of Mexico's main criminal threats.

The CJNG came to power in Mexico in the late 2000s, initially as an offshoot of the Sinaloa Cartel. It is known for its aggressive tactics and its willingness to engage in violent confrontations with both Mexican security forces and rival cartels.

According to journalist David Saucedo, the CJNG was not only dedicated to recruiting young people, but was also recruiting mayors, precisely from Movimiento Ciudadano, the party that in the last six-year term was the dominant political force, referring to the role of the party that has been in state power since the six-year term of Enrique Alfaro.

After the mayor’s arrest, the initial hearing was held, which lasted more than 10 hours at the Federal Criminal Justice Centre in Puente Grande. A federal judge ordered him to be remanded in custody due to the risk of flight and the seriousness of the charges against him.

According to testimony presented at the hearing, Murguía not only had knowledge of CJNG operations in the area but also personally attended meetings with key cartel figures.

One of the witnesses revealed that the local official provided patrol cars, weapons and municipal police to serve the criminal group, which reportedly earned him payments of 70,000 pesos (USD 3,600) per month in cash and isolated plots of land.

In addition, the presentation of this initial evidence led to claims that the mayor actively participated in the disposal of human remains after the organs were dumped in a clandestine grave on the site. Victims also have claimed the mayor forced them to eat human meat.

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Mexico’s security minister dismisses claims that Izaguirre Ranch was an extermination camp

April 2025: In February and March of this year, groups of people searching for missing loved ones secretly entered the Izaguirre Ranch in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. There, they allegedly found pits containing the remains of burned bones and thousands of personal belongings.

Following the discoveries, it was claimed that the ranch, which is inside the municipality of Teuchitlán, was used as a recruitment and extermination centre by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The discoveries caused a national outcry, with some labelling it “Mexico’s Auschwitz.

But Mexico’s government has dismissed the allegations that the ranch was used as an extermination camp. The country’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, said there was no evidence that a so-called ‘ranch of horror’ strewn with human remains was an ‘extermination camp’, but rather it was a cartel training site where some of those who resisted recruitment may have been killed.

The minister told reporters that online ads from cartels offered salaries of between US$200 and $600 a week, well above the $100 to $150 that many Mexicans earn in a week. Recruits were directed to bus stations, from where they were transported to the ranch, he said.

At the camp, officials said, recruits relinquished their clothing and cellphones, remained incommunicado to the outside world, and were issued uniforms and tactical boots — a process that might explain the piles of abandoned personal effects found at the site.

The recruits underwent a one-month course of physical drills and firearms training, García Harfuch said, before many were incorporated into the cartel structure. Those who refused training or tried to escape may have faced beatings, torture and even death, García Harfuch said.

Sources: Infobae, InSight Crime, El Financiero, Los Angeles Times, OpenDemocracy

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Further reading: Mexican mayor beheaded | Mayor Yolanda Sánchez shot dead in broad daylight |