The vigilantes took Mrs Felix del Monte(photo) gang leader El Tequilero’s mom  to negotiate the release of kidnapped citizen Isauro de la Paz Duque 

Vigilantes in a Mexican village have seized the mother of, ‘El Tequilero’,  a local gang leader and proposed swapping her for a kidnap victim taken on Monday.
Sick of seeing their family members kidnapped by the local gang, the furious citizens of the Mexican town of Totolapan have abducted the drug lord’s mother and other members of his gang to demand their release.

“We have your mother here, mister known as El Tequilero,” says Yadira Guillermo Garcia whose husband was kidnapped on Sunday. ‘El Tequilero‘s mom was taken Monday, to be used as a bargaining chip. On Tuesday the government deployed police, army and negotiators

Totolapan is controlled by Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, better known as ‘El Tequilero’, who has been warring with other underworld bosses in the area. Notorious for kidnapping  citizens either for extortion or revenge and deterrence if he thinks they are helping other gangs. The latest victims of his reign of terror disappeared last week.
This week the exasperated citizens struck back, teams of vigilantes rode through Totolapan waving guns, demanding action and threatening El Tequilero’s mom.

The government of Guerrero state moved to diffuse the situation Tuesday, sending around 220 soldiers and police, as well as a negotiating team, to the area.
‘The goal of the team is to ensure that no injury is done to the missing person, nor to the mother of the head of the Tequileros gang, who has apparently been taken by the self-defense forces,’ a government statement said.
The end result was the freeing of around five of the kidnap victims and an agreement to release the others on the understanding they would be investigated or charged by police.
But the mom remains in the custody of the vigilantes.
The government has agreed to have state police oversee her exchange for the kidnapped engineer.

Tequilla loving Raybel Jacobo de Almonte is known to drink until he has to be helped getting around by his guards

The emergence of vigilante groups, also known as self-styled ‘community police,’ has become a headache for Guerrero’s government.
Authorities say they understand residents’ frustration but note the groups often wind up kidnapping suspects, fighting among themselves or preventing police from doing their work.
‘The truth is, they are not really community forces, nor are they police,’ Governor Hector Astudillo has said. ‘They are armed groups that unfortunately carry out acts … that generate more violence and confrontation, rather than help.’
On Tuesday, he said: ‘This is something that has to end – that every time somebody gets the idea into their head of kidnapping somebody, they kidnap them.’
El Tequilero’ has lived up to his nickname, which translates roughly as ‘The Tequila Drinker.’
In his only known public appearance, he was captured on video drinking with the town’s mayor-elect. He mumbles inaudibly and has to be held up in a sitting position by one of his henchmen.
In late November, the Guerrero government said he was believed to have been wounded and was hiding out with his kidnap victims in the mountains.
The state attorney general headed an extensive manhunt using helicopters and troops on the ground in an unsuccessful effort to locate the gang leader.
The area around Totolapan is a hotbed of drug trafficking, killings and extortion. It is the foot of the mountains that produce much of Mexico’s opium poppy crop.
Totolapan itself is considered so dangerous that many outlying hamlets in the township have been abandoned by fearful residents.
In 2014, the battered body of the parish priest, the Rev. Ascension Acuna Osorio, was found floating in the Balsas river near the town.