On February 1, 2017 Juan Ontiveros Ramos, a police officer in the municipality of Choréachi (Pino Gordo), was abducted and murdered. He had just returned from Chihuahua, where, along with the traditional authorities, he had reported on the insecurity and violence in his home community before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In Choréachi, as elsewhere, there is a conflict between the laws of the indigenous community and those who wield local power and who grow drugs and conduct logging operations on the public common lands of Pino Gordo. This occurs with permission from the Mexican Environmental Protection Agency SEMARNAT. The indigenous community has filed suit in the courts. But the drug mafia, which has its fingers in the timber economy, has already murdered five indigenous spokespersons in Choréachi in recent years.