Mexican Government Confirms Death Of Knights Templar Leader ‘Kike’ Plancarte In Querétaro

Mexican officials confirmed on Tuesday the death of Enrique “Kike” Plancarte Solís, one of the four main heads of the Knights Templar drug cartel, after the Mexican department of justice carried out tests to verify his identity. Plancarte Solís, the cartel’s second in command, was killed during a standoff with the Mexican navy and army in Querétaro state on Monday. At the time of his death, he was wanted by the government – which offered a reward of 30 million pesos, or $2.3 million dollars, for information leading to his capture – on charges including organized crime, kidnapping and homicide, according to La Jornada.

Plancarte Solís’s death comes less than a month after that of Nazario Moreno González, or “El Chayo”, founder of the Knights Templar and one of its top three leaders, also in a standoff with federal forces. A third cartel head, Servando Gómez or “La Tuta”, remains on the run from authorities. Vanguardia puts the tally of Knights Templar members who have yet to be apprehended at at least 17, including four cartel leaders and 13 main operators. That group, the site notes, includes members who control some of the cartel’s most important pieces of turf – the Tierra Caliente city of Apatzingán, which lies on the northward-bound drug shipment route, and the Pacific port of Lázaro Cárdenas.

Milenio writes that the operation that ended in Plancarte Solís’s death developed over the course of 24 hours in the town of Colón, where federal forces searched dozens of residences and came up empty-handed. He was finally tracked down near a public soccer field, where authorities say he resisted arrest, sparking the final standoff.