He Started an Armed Revolt Against the Cartels. His Murder Could be the End of It.

LA RUANA, Mexico—A quiet morning in La Ruana, a tiny town in the troubled Mexican state of Michoacán, was interrupted by a convoy of three white pickup trucks careening down the road at full speed. 

Locals didn’t know who was driving, they told VICE News. But everyone knew who they were after: Hipólito Mora, the founder of Mexico’s first anti-cartel self-defense brigade. 

Guadalupe, Hipólito’s brother, also saw trucks speeding towards Hipólito’s ranch that day in late June. He called him right away: “Hey brother, a convoy of armed men just entered the town.” 

“I know ” answered Hipólito, who was on his way back to his ranch  in his armored SUV. “Please take care,” Guadalupe said before hanging up. 

Minutes later, the noise of gunshots rattled across the whole town.

Hipólito’s SUV was attacked in the middle of a dirt road. The hitmen used powerful .50 caliber bullets, raining down more than a hundred rounds, according to authorities. Some of them hit the SUV’s gas tank, setting the vehicle on fire. Hipólito was forced out of the car by the flames, and after they shot him, one of the attackers set his body on fire. He died at the scene.

For many in Michoacán, the brutal murder of Hipólito in the early hours of June 29 marked the final chapter in a civilian movement that started in this same town a decade ago. For a few, it was a new reason to take up arms in resistance again. 

In 2013, after several years of cruel rule by the Knights Templar cartel—a cult-like criminal organization in Michoacán—local farmers, led by Hipólito Mora, rose up in arms. The creation of Mexico’s first self-defense movement, which made headlines around the world, was an attempt to push back on the relentless stealing of land, kidnapping, and extortion dispensed by the cartel. In less than 10 months, hundreds of heavily armed civilians drove the Knights Templar out of their territory and recovered their stolen land. 

By then, Mexico was already engulfed in drug-related violence that escalated in 2006, when the country’s recently-elected President Felipe Calderon unleashed the military to combat the cartels. Michoacán was ground zero for the nation’s drug war, and was the first state to which federal troops were sent as part of the government campaign that has continued, in some shape or form, under Calderon’s predecessors. 

“It was a huge success for us, and for this town. The people that had left in fear returned to live on their land, and the local economy began booming again,” Guadalupe said. 

The uprising spread. At least 13 other local communities around the region, known locally as “la Tierra Caliente” (Hotlands) because of the dryness and hot temperatures during summer, successfully pushed back against the despotic rule of the Knights Templar. The movement even spread to other states in Mexico after enjoying some victories against local crime bosses.

 But four years later, in 2017, the Mexican government co-opted the armed civilians, and rebranded them the “civilian guard,” forcefully requesting they register their weapons and members, and wear uniforms. Many played along, and the wind left the sails of a civilian-led movement. And the cartels exploited it. 

“Those community or civilian guards began taking in a lot of cartel members. They called them ‘the forgiven,’ because they allegedly wanted to become self-defense members. But of course it was just a way for them to carry their arms legally, and to break up the movement,” Guadalupe said. 

At that point, Hipólito left the self-defense crusade and called out the cartels for infiltrating it. 

One of the cartel leaders he signaled was Heladio Cisneros, known as “La Sirena,” allegedly the head of the local Los Viagras cartel and reportedly, the intellectual author behind Mora’s murder. 

Los Viagras was founded in 2014 by the Sierra Santana family, six brothers who began as a self-defense group formed of several “forgiven” Knights Templar. The brothers reportedly began funding their activities working for Nemesio Oseguera Cervántes, the notorious leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) also known as “El Mencho”, currently one of the U.S’s most wanted criminals. 

Soon enough, the brothers formed their own powerful organization that manufactured methamphetamine, trafficked cocaine, and extorted local farmers. 

Before Hipólito was killed in June, he had survived at least two other attacks–he believed orchestrated by Los Viagras–according to news interviews with him. 

Now he’s gone, his brother fears he is in the crosshairs. 

The sound of birds, and the wind in the leaves of the lime trees, creates an eerie calm in La Ruana. Following Hipólito’s murder, Los Viagras have dozens of henchmen on the outskirts of the city, patrolling on motorcycles or sitting in the shade, walkie-talkies in their hands. Some others from the same cartel are patrolling the small town riding in their pick-up trucks, their tinted windows obscuring the faces of those inside. They blast out narcocorridos, or drug ballads, loud enough for everyone to hear. 

The main highway that splits La Ruana is probably the last trench protecting Guadalupe Mora. His small humble house is distinguished by the two large white armored SUVs parked outside, and the 10 heavily armed state police officers standing around on the sidewalk. 

When we spoke, Guadalupe wore a red shirt and a red hat, to mark the bloodshed of his brother’s death. He sat on a single chair looking out of his balcony from where he can watch the vast share of La Ruana and the lime farms behind it. Everyday, he says, he watches from morning until dusk, guarded by an armed man to his right and nine more at the entrance to his house. He keeps a candle burning around the clock in front of an altar to Mexico’s beloved Virgincita, the Virgin Mary. 

“I can’t even go to the store across the street. They will kill me as soon as I leave my house,” Guadalupe told VICE News. 

After the murder of his brother, Michoacán state authorities sent at least 10 officers to guard Guadalupe’s life, knowing he is now the next target for the Los Viagras. 

“We—my brother and I—told the government that Los Viagras took this town and now things are even worse than 10 years ago when my brother started the movement,” he said.

“I am the last man standing, surrounded by criminals, by Los Viagras,” Guadalupe said. “The whole town is scared of calling them  out, and I can’t say I am not. But I won’t let my brother’s murder go in vain.” 

“The government needs to get rid of Los Viagras or this will never stop,” said Guadalupe. 

He and other locals who asked not to be named blame Los Viagras for extorting every business in town. 

“Avocados here sell for twice the commercial price in Mexico. The tortillas are also twice the regular price. They even manipulate the supply of limes to keep the prices high,” a local farmer told VICE News. 

Los Viagras limit the harvesting of the limes in order to create scarcity, residents said. 

“We live day by day, with what we earn for harvesting limes. We usually earn 200 pesos a day [roughly $11], but there are mornings when Los Viagras tell us to leave the farm early in the morning. On days like that we only make 15 pesos. We can’t live on that,” one farmer said. 

On the way out of La Ruana, a huge warehouse stands out in the plain landscape. The tall rusty gate and a black pick-up truck outside guard all sorts of goods within, Guadalupe claimed. 

“That is a warehouse owned by Los Viagras. All the supplies we use in La Ruana, from gasoline to milk, to meat, are stored there, because they have kidnapped our supply chain. Everything here is owned by them and we buy from them,” he said. 

In the nearby isolated town of Las Lomas, on the border between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, Father José Luis Segura still offers mass every Sunday morning. Segura, a gray-haired man in his late 70s, lives in the same Catholic church where he gives mass. His words and sermons over the last four decades have made him as much an activist as a priest. 

“I’ve asked our brothers in arms to stop hurting the population, to leave the people alone and do their businesses without hurting anyone,” Segura told VICE News, sitting inside his church on a hot afternoon. 

His words have earned him the enmity of several cartels. As we arrived that afternoon to meet him, several pick-up trucks parked on the main plaza right in front of Segura’s church. They ruined the rural calm by blasting loud narcocorridos from their stereos, the lyrics in adoration of El Mencho and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel. 

“This is the usual here. Sometimes they go further and fire shots at my windows, but they don’t dare to kill me,” Segura said before laughing loudly. “I’ve come outside before and said ‘are going to kill me or what?’”

Segura has seen the rise and fall of the self-defense movement first hand. 

“The movement was of course a moment of joy and hope for all of us who have been asking for peace,” he said. “But if you ask me what the current status of the self-defense movement is, I would say: deceased.” 

“There is no hope here, if I’m being honest,” he said. “The criminals sent a clear message that that is what will happen to anyone who tries to fight them.” 

Segura said he will die in his church, “probably killed by these [hit]men)”. 

The last self-defense groups in the state are in the town of Tancítaro, on Michoacán’s highest peak at over 4,000 feet. The town is known as the avocado capital of the world because it produces over 90 percent of the green fruit consumed in the Western hemisphere, and some 30 percent of avocados eaten globally.  

To get to Tancítaro, VICE News had to drive through several improvised checkpoints manned by heavily armed civilians. At one of the barricades, two men holding AK-47s over their chests and a hand pistol tucked into their jeans stood watch. 

They have resisted cartel attacks, as well as government attempts to co-opt them over the years, they said.

“They want to disarm us for political reasons, because they say we give a bad impression. But the reality is that we are the hope of this country, we are showing Mexicans that this is how we can battle the cartels, by coming together,” one of the guards, who asked not to be named, said. 

Entering Tancítaro, the avocado industry is omnipresent: from the souvenirs to huge packaging factories, everything here revolves around the “green gold.” 

Which is what all of the cartels in Michoacán are after. The local farmers have even made their own avocado-police, a privately-funded police force that guards the farms from thieves, illegal loggers, and cartels. The revenue from avocados has given Tancítaro powerful resources. 

The interview with part of the leadership of the Tancítaro self-defense movement by  VICE News took place in the back room of a convenience store. Most of the men in the meeting are senior citizens. They wore rubber sandals or work boots, and carried walkie talkies and guns. 

“We have enough weapons to resist several armies,” another of the Tancítaro self-defense members said, requesting to remain anonymous. “If you don’t believe me, ask them how it turned out for them the last time they tried to invade.” 

On the night of July 2, a group of sicarios, allegedly from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, tried to enter Tancítaro by one of the dirt roads that remains mostly unwatched. Around 20 men riding in five pick-ups began a shootout with a group of self-defense vigilantes in the area. After they called for support, roughly 100 men from the self-defense movement gathered and began fighting back the army of sicarios. 

“In the end we only killed a few of them, and arrested the rest. The temptation to kill them was there, of course, but we are not like them. We sent them back to where they came from and asked them to tell their bosses that it's not going to be easy,” the guard said. 

Hipólito Mora left an unfinished barricade on the second floor of his house in La Ruana. He spent his last days piling up bricks, anticipating what was to come. This is where he wanted to be when the attack came. 

“He was always armed, but it is impossible to fight back with the criminals when they are protected by the government,” Guadalupe claimed. .  

Outside Hipólito’s house lies the rusted skeleton of a truck that was burned during the attack that killed him, a morbid reminder not to follow in his footsteps. 

“We have lost all hope, so we do what we need to do to survive…until we can’t afford to pay any more (the extortion fees) and then who knows, we will probably have to leave,” one of Hipólito’s neighbors told VICE News. 

Ten years ago, after the founding of the self-defense movement, the silence in La Ruana was different. It was the silence after the storm, one of peace and hope. But today’s silence is eerie, resembling the quiet of a graveyard. The calm, perhaps, before a coming storm.