Mexico City mayor’s senior officials shot dead

Gunmen riding a motorcycle have shot dead two senior members of the Mexico City mayor’s team amid President Claudia Sheinbaum’s security clampdown.

Forensic investigators work at the crime scene of the killing of Jose Munoz and Ximena Guzman in Mexico City. Picture: AFP.

Gunmen riding a motorcycle have shot dead two senior members of the Mexico City mayor’s team in a rush hour double murder amid President Claudia Sheinbaum’s security clampdown on the country.

Clara Brugada, who holds one of the country’s most important political positions, called the killing of her personal secretary Ximena Guzman and adviser Jose “Pepe” Munoz a “direct attack.” Authorities were investigating the motive and checking surveillance camera footage to identify the perpetrators, the mayor said.

“There will be no impunity. Those responsible will be arrested and must face justice,” Ms Brugada added.

At a sombre press conference, she vowed her administration would continue “its relentless fight against insecurity” and held a minute’s silence for the victims.

Ms Sheinbaum was given the news during a press conference, as her Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch prepared to give an update on arrests and seizures of drugs in the country.

Ms Guzman and Mr Munoz were both members of Ms Sheinbaum’s Morena party, which also governs Mexico City.

Mexico City mayor Clara Brugada speaks to reporters. Picture: AFP.

Ms Brugada is a close ally of Ms Sheinbaum, who was herself mayor of the city of nine million people before becoming president last year.

“It’s a deplorable incident,” Ms Sheinbaum said, pledging her full support to Ms Brugada and her team.

She expressed her condolences and said Ms Guzman and Mr Munoz had worked for her political movement for years.

“With the support of the Mexican government, investigations are already under way to determine the motive for the attack,” she said.

Forensic experts were seen gathering evidence at the scene of the crime on a busy avenue, as police officers stood guard.

A body covered in a white sheet lay on the ground near the victims’ car, whose windows were shattered.

Mexico security analyst David Saucedo said the killings had the hallmarks of an organised crime hit and he believes they were intended to put pressure on Brugada's administration. He questioned why someone as important as Ms Guzmán to Ms Brugada did not have a security detail.

Around 480,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since 2006. Despite growing drug cartel violence elsewhere in the Latin American nation, the capital has remained calmer than many areas.

While politicians and their aides, particularly at the local level, often get caught up in gang-related crime in other areas, such murders on the streets of Mexico City are relatively rare.

In one notable incident, Mexico City security chief Omar Garcia Harfuch survived an attack by heavily armed gunmen who killed two of his bodyguards and a passer-by in the street in June 2020.

Garcia Harfuch was wounded in the shooting, which he blamed on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the drug trafficking groups recently designated terrorist organisations by US President Donald Trump.

Last July, Mexico City’s police special operations chief, Milton Figueroa, was murdered.

Garcia Harfuch, who is now Sheinbaum’s national security minister, said his office was helping search for the perpetrators of Tuesday’s attack.

“We will not let this cowardly act go unpunished,” he wrote on X.

AFP, AP