Anatomy of a drug-linked political assassination

César Caballero, 50, who served as a representative of the town of Belisario Porras, San Miguelito, was shot, on Tuesday, November 7, in front of his house.

According to the Public Ministry and the National Police, the township representative was returning from Colombia when the hitmen surprised him reports La Prensa  which headlined the story “The crime attacks another friend of Raúl Pineda.”

A video on social networks shows the crime scene. A man, in a red sweater, is standing in front of the passenger seat of a small white bus.

While he arranges some objects in the front seat, he observes a gray Hyundai Accent that approaches and stops a few steps away. Two men get out of the car. As if he knew he was the target, Caballero tried to protect himself and quickly threw himself into the vehicle. His executioners give him no respite. One in the front of the car, firing again and again; the other fires shots at him from the side of the passenger door.

The incident occurred at 9:50 am Tuesday. Caballero was transferred to the Generoso Guardia Polyclinic,  San Miguelito, where he died. “The main objective was the representative,” said the senior homicide prosecutor, Rafael Baloyes, who is leading the investigations.

“When it comes to hitmen, there are other participants and other vehicles involved” and that is why the scope of the investigation will be expanded, said the prosecutor.

Caballero was in the ranks of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), which even nominated him to run for reelection in the 2024 elections, despite the fact that he had a confirmed conviction for embezzlement. He belonged to Pineda’s political circle. Photographs that both published on their social networks show the level of trust, camaraderie, and loyalty that they professed.

The deputy was one of those who went yesterday to the clinic where his friend’s body was. The mayor of San Miguelito, Héctor Valdés Carrasquilla, also arrived there; the Administrative Director of the Presidency, Everardo De León; as well as representatives of the district’s township, among others.

Other cases  
The event was reminiscent of the murder of Agustín Lara Díaz, on November 14, 2021. Lara was the deputy director of the Public Registry, an enthusiastic PRD activist, and Pineda’s partner in a law firm. The day he was killed, he promoted the registration of people to the ranks of the PRD. Political activity took place in Los Andes, San Miguelito. Two hitmen killed him. The authorities have jealously guarded the details related to the motive for the crime. There is one detainee, Yeison Felipe Possu Mera, who denies any connection with the event.

Pineda also mourned the death of Ovidio Omar Castro, alias Tulip. Castro was shot in August 2021 in a Multiplaza parking lot. At that time Castro appeared on the payroll of the municipality of San Miguelito. He had a salary of $600 and held the position of community promoter.

 According to judicial authorities, Castro was a drug lord from Nuevo Veranillo, San Miguelito, and had ties to the Los Chacales gang, a group accused of the murder of Wendy Rodríguez, who was shot to death in the southern corridor in August 2020; and Diógenes Yoyi Vergara, former deputy, who was murdered in February 2021 in Pacora. Both were also part of the ranks of the PRD. On social networks, Deputy Pineda lamented Tulip’s death.

In August 2012 Pineda had another loss. His assistant, Gilberto Kiki Pinzón, was murdered in a shootout outside his political center in San Miguelito. In the shooting, they also injured her sister Anneth Pineda, mother of José Ruiloba Pineda, a candidate for deputy for the PRD in San Miguelito, for the 2024 elections. Ruiloba made the news in November 2022, after her business premises, Xtreme Plaza, located in the Los Andes sector number two, one person was murdered and three were injured in the middle of the so-called “Culecos of the district.”

At that time, Pineda accused his partner, lawyer Juan Ramón Mesina, of being behind the death of Kiki Pinzón.

A year before Kiki Pinzón’s crime, the police stopped a driver transporting drugs, whose car had Pineda’s parliamentary license plate, who reported that his license plate and credentials had been falsified.

The deputy’s name also resonated after Mesina’s murder in September 2013. Katiuska Ramos, Mesina’s wife, initially accused the deputy of having ordered her husband to be murdered. Pineda denied any link. Ramos is currently the Director of the Gender Equality Unit of the National Assembly.