On April 15, roughly 50 people, including eight Tecate municipal police officers, workers in city government shirts, and a woman claiming to be a civil court clerk, arrived at Rancho La Nopalera with heavy municipal machinery. They gave the family of 87-year-old Eva Eulogia Sandoval Zamora 15 minutes to remove their belongings. Then they demolished two homes, crushed family gardens, and fenced off 1.6 hectares of a four-hectare property the Sandoval family, of Kumiai indigenous origin, has occupied for more than a century. The woman who identified herself as a court clerk never showed a valid judicial order. The case exposes a Tecate property fraud scheme that any landowner in Baja California’s smaller municipalities should understand.
Seven Adverse Possession Lawsuits Filed by One Developer in Tecate
The man who arrived at the ranch that morning and claimed ownership was José Rubén Castro Mercado. He represents Grupo Inmobiliario Tierra y Crédito, a real estate company that sells lots in the Cumbre de Renacer, Monte Albán, and Cortez subdivisions near Tecate. Those subdivisions belong to former PRI mayor César Moreno González, who served as Tecate’s municipal president from 2013 to 2016.
Sitting Mayor Román Cota Muñoz served as Moreno’s personal secretary during that administration. In late 2025, Cota publicly recognized Castro as an “ally” of his government. Photographs of the two men together were distributed by Cota’s own communications team.
A search of Baja California’s judicial archives found that Castro has filed at least seven prescripción positiva (adverse possession) lawsuits in Tecate’s civil court. Under Mexico’s Civil Code for Baja California, prescripción positiva allows a person who has occupied a property openly and continuously for five years (or three years with a just title) to petition a judge for legal ownership. The mechanism exists to resolve informal land tenure. But when abused, it becomes a tool for land theft: a claimant files suit, the court fails to properly notify the actual owner, and a default judgment transfers the title.
That appears to be the pattern here. The Sandoval family told investigators they were never notified of any lawsuit. They tried to show the arriving group their property title, survey plans, and predial (property tax) receipts. The self-identified clerk told them to raise those objections later, through an appeal or an amparo, Mexico’s constitutional injunction process.
If the court order was real, it likely came from Judge Martha Elena González Zavala, who oversees Tecate’s first-instance civil court. She took the bench in August 2024 and was later confirmed through Baja California’s 2025 judicial election. The lawsuit was reportedly filed by a woman named Beatriz Gallardo Celaya against Sandoval Zamora.
Former Tecate Mayor Confirmed City Equipment Was Used in Demolition
On April 19, former Tecate Mayor Darío Benítez, also of the Morena party, posted a video on social media confirming that city government personnel and municipal machinery carried out the demolition. “City hall employees entered immediately and began tearing down her home,” Benítez said. “They destroyed houses, walls.” He added that the new fencing was installed without a basic topographic survey.
After the demolition, Tecate police officers guarded the fenced-off section for several days. Starting April 19, plainclothes individuals replaced them. Both groups have reportedly harassed the family at night, shining flashlights at them.
The family documented that the machinery destroyed two oak trees and a cirio (boojum tree), both protected species under Mexican environmental law, as well as a nearly five-meter pepper tree. Animals on the property, including chickens and a cat, have not been found. A horse remains trapped inside the barbed-wire perimeter, and the family has had difficulty feeding and watering it.
How Prescripción Positiva Fraud Targets Properties With Weak Documentation
Rancho La Nopalera was founded 102 years ago by Francisca Zamora and Pablo Sandoval López, both members of the Kumiai indigenous community. The ranch once spanned 91 hectares. Over decades, portions were sold (some without family authorization), giving rise to colonias including El Mirador, Emiliano Zapata, and Valle Verde. Today, four hectares remain.
The Sandoval case fits a specific fraud pattern that Baja California authorities have described as a cártel inmobiliario, or real estate cartel. The scheme works like this: a claimant files an adverse possession lawsuit in a local civil court, the court issues notifications to an incorrect address or skips notification entirely, the property owner never appears, and the judge issues a default judgment transferring the title. With a court order in hand, the claimant then uses police or government resources to enforce eviction.
Property owners in smaller Baja California municipalities are particularly vulnerable. In cities like Tecate, a single civil judge handles all property cases. If that judge cooperates with the claimant, there is no immediate check. The owner’s recourse is an amparo, a federal constitutional injunction, but that requires a lawyer, money, and knowledge that a lawsuit exists in the first place.
Three concrete steps can reduce exposure. First, verify that your property is correctly registered at the Registro Público de la Propiedad (Baja California’s public property registry) with current contact information. Second, keep predial tax receipts current, since paid-up tax records are strong evidence of continuous ownership. Third, request a certificado de libertad de gravamen (lien-free certificate) annually to check whether any claims have been filed against your title.
The Tecate municipal government did not respond to interview requests before publication. Cota’s communications director, Guadalupe Obeso Gutiérrez, initially agreed to provide a statement but stopped responding to messages. This story was first reported by Punto Norte.