Ex-State Governor in Mexico Possibly Hunted for Months Before Chilling Assassination

Aristoteles Sandoval, the former state governor of Jalisco, Mexico, was assassinated by unknown suspects in the popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta.

The former state governor of Jalisco, Mexico was shot dead on Friday in the popular beach resort of Puerta Vallarta. Reports said that former governor Aristoteles Sandoval was dining with four others when the fatal assassination happened.

Assassination of Aristoteles Sandoval

Aristoteles Sandoval was dining with four other persons in a restaurant in a popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta on Friday. At around 1:40, he got up from the table and went to the toilet where the killer shot him in the back, according to the State Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís.

According to The Guardian, Sandoval did not die immediately and his bodyguards tried to evacuate him from the restaurant.

Unfortunately, they were blocked by more gunmen in the street outside who opened fire that seriously injured one of his bodyguards. Sandoval, later on, died at a local hospital.

It was found out that the former state governor of Jalisco had been assigned 15 police bodyguards but only two were with him during the fatal attack.

Security analyst Alejandro Hope said, "A lot of planning went into this murder - which means that someone had been hunting him for weeks, if not months. Someone who knew his movements, who knew more or less when he would not have all his bodyguards."

Meanwhile, State Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís said that staff at the restaurant cleaned the crime scene, removing blood and bullet casings, and erasing video of the attack that could have helped the investigation in the said assassination.

Police currently investigating possible suspects

It might be difficult for the police officers to point out the persons responsible for the assassination. Solis told Televisa that there are no clues and everything in the crime scene including the CCTV recording was swept and deleted. But he speculated that there were eight to ten suspects involved in the crime.

Moreover, Mexico's President Manuel Lopez Obrador offered condolences and promised to bring perpetrators to justice.

Normally, high-profile crimes that possibly involved a drug cartel are taken over by federal prosecutors but Obrador said that state prosecutors will do the investigation.

Current Jalisco governor released a statement

Enrique Alfaro, who is the current state governor of Jalisco, called the assassination a "direct attack" and he also believed that the killer knew who he was targeting and was only interested in killing the former state governor.

Hope also said, "It's no small thing to attack an ex-governor -and it sends a powerful message. But a message for whom? We just don't know yet."

There are some speculations that it could be some members of Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It can be remembered that during Sandoval's first week in office, suspected CJNG gunmen murdered his minister for tourism in Jalisco's state capital Guadalajara.