Workers using cranes contracted to the Tecate municipal government dismantled and removed the mobile home of an 87-year-old Kumiai woman on May 1, the second time in three weeks that municipal resources have been deployed against the same family in a disputed Tecate land dispossession case. The family says the cranes belonged to Grúas Salceda, a towing company whose contract with the city was revoked under the previous administration over corruption complaints but reinstated by Mayor Román Cota Muñoz.
April 15 Eviction at La Nopalera Involved Police, City Machinery
The property in question is a 1.6-hectare section of La Nopalera ranch, owned by Eva Eulogia Sandoval Zamora. On April 15, judicial personnel, municipal police, and city employees entered the property with heavy machinery. They demolished several structures and handed the land to Rubén Castro, a man who identified himself as the owner.
Castro is linked to Mayor Cota and maintains multiple “prescripción positiva” lawsuits in Tecate. Prescripción positiva is a Mexican legal mechanism similar to adverse possession, where a person claims ownership of land by occupying it for a period of years. Castro also markets a real estate development tied to the property of César Moreno González, a former PRI mayor of Tecate. Moreno González is described as Cota’s principal political patron.
Former Tecate Mayor Darío Benítez has backed the family’s account. He confirmed that city employees and municipal police participated in the April 15 eviction alongside judicial staff. The family says a woman who identified herself as a court clerk (actuaria) oversaw the operation and prevented Sandoval Zamora from removing her belongings before the demolition.
Cota Gave Two Contradictory Explanations for Police Involvement
Mayor Cota has offered two different versions of why municipal police were at La Nopalera on April 15. In a press release on April 26, he said officers happened to be patrolling the area. They were “informed at the scene about a judicial proceeding and the presence of agitated individuals,” so they stayed to keep order.
Three days later, at his weekly press conference on April 29, Cota changed his account. He said police responded to an official written order (oficio) from the court. Those two explanations are mutually exclusive: either the officers stumbled onto the scene, or they were dispatched under court authority.
The contradiction matters because it goes to the core question of municipal complicity. If Tecate police were formally ordered to assist the eviction, the city was an active participant, not a bystander keeping the peace.
Grúas Salceda Lost Its Contract Over Corruption, Then Got It Back
On the morning of May 1, Rosalina Carmona Sandoval, the elderly owner’s daughter, was preparing breakfast with her mother and brother on a portion of the ranch they still occupy. She said two separate teams of workers arrived with large cranes and began dismantling both her home and her mother’s mobile home.
“They stole my house,” Sandoval Zamora told reporters. “They dismantled it, pulled it out, and took it off the property.” She noted a key difference from the April 15 action: this time, the workers took care to preserve the structures intact rather than demolish them, suggesting the homes were taken for reuse.
Witnesses identified the crane vehicles as belonging to Grúas Salceda. Tecate’s municipal transparency portal confirms that Grúas Salceda holds a current concession with the city government. That concession has its own troubled history. The previous Tecate administration revoked the company’s contract after receiving multiple citizen complaints about corruption and abusive practices. Cota’s administration restored the concession after taking office.
A Pattern of Municipal Resources Used in Disputed Land Transfers
The La Nopalera case now involves three distinct instances of city resources appearing in the same disputed land transfer. Municipal police participated in the April 15 eviction. City employees operated municipal machinery to demolish structures that same day. And on May 1, a city-contracted crane company removed the remaining homes from the property.
Tecate, a border city of roughly 110,000 residents about 35 miles east of Tijuana, has drawn growing numbers of American and Canadian buyers in recent years. Land title disputes are a known risk for foreign buyers in rural Baja California, where informal ownership and incomplete registries can leave properties vulnerable to competing claims. The Sandoval Zamora case follows a pattern: a long-held rural property, a legal challenge through the courts, and municipal force applied to complete the transfer.
The Kumiai people are one of Baja California’s indigenous communities, with historical roots in the Tecate and Ensenada regions. Sandoval Zamora’s family describes the ranch as ancestral land.
The family has not announced whether they have filed a formal complaint with the FGE, Baja California’s state attorney general’s office, or with federal authorities. Castro’s prescripción positiva claims remain active in Tecate courts. This story was first reported by Punto Norte.