The mysterious Mexican Batman who spreads terror among motorcycle thieves, tying them to poles with duct tape (to make them arrest)

A disturbing variation of private justice is shaking the streets of the Mexican municipality of Lagos de Moreno, in the state of Jalisco. A mysterious and ruthless vigilante, already nicknamed the Batman of Lagos by digital communities and residents, has started a methodical personal crusade against local petty crime.

The vigilante’s action follows a well-defined and brutal ritual protocol: the alleged criminals are attacked, brutally beaten, immobilized with hands and feet with solid packing tape and left exposed to public ridicule tied to electricity poles or metal structures in the middle of the road, waiting to be found by the patrols.

The chain of captures and summary executions began last June 13, when a young man was found in very serious physical conditions, pinned to a lamppost with the word “thief” imprinted on his forehead with fresh paint and an accusation card. The retaliation did not stop: on 17 June, two other boys aged just eighteen were found, immobilized with gray tape, with their mouths sealed and with a mocking symbolic intervention which saw the application of fake mouse mustaches on their faces. On the same day, a 23-year-old was displayed with signs directly linking him to motorcycle theft, while a fifth similar case was recorded on 19 June.

The formal position of the authorities and the puzzle of the anonymous gang

The repetition of these episodes triggered an immediate split within the community, divided between those who celebrate the immediate effectiveness of the punishments and those who denounce the risk of the collapse of the rule of law. The police and the judiciary act with extreme institutional embarrassment.

The secretary of Public Security of Jalisco, Juan Pablo Hernández, confirmed the deployment of the investigative police to trace those responsible for the ambushes, underlining that the five subjects captured and hospitalized with trauma from beatings must be formally treated as victims of aggression, regardless of the crimes committed previously.

Although the collective imagination celebrates the romantic figure of a single, solitary avenger in a comic book style, experts from the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office raise strong doubts about the logistical feasibility of the operations. According to the investigative leaders, the precision of the kidnappings and the physical management of the prisoners could be the work of a real structured gang of vigilantes or an armed civil defense cell. The absolute silence of the learned and freed criminals contributes to increasing the mystery: none of the five victims in fact wanted to release any statement useful for identifying the kidnappers or clarifying the real origin of the group.

The historical precedents of justicialism and the risks of do-it-yourself justice

The appearance of the Batman of Lagos is part of a deep and extremely bloody historical era that characterizes the recent history of Mexico, a territory exasperated by the chronic inefficiency of the police force. Local historical memory brings to mind famous figures such as Don Alejo Garza Tamez, the elderly entrepreneur who in 2010 died defending his ranch in Tamaulipas alone, killing four members of a commando, becoming a national symbol, or the cases of the various metropolitan vigilantes who on public transport in Mexico City have repeatedly eliminated robbers on board buses with the silent complicity of passengers.

The most disturbing and specular precedents, however, date back to the period between March and May 2022, with the appearance of the so-called Cleaner of Morelos, specialized in the targeted murder of alleged sexual attackers, and to the 2018 case recorded in Puerto Vallarta. In that coastal town, eleven people were found completely naked, tied to electricity poles and with the letter R shaved on the back of their necks, a police enigma that remained unsolved.

The new outbreak in Lagos de Moreno, where stolen motorcycles are parked next to tied bodies as irrefutable proof of the crime, can only inevitably reopen the debate on the insurmountable boundaries of legitimate defense and the dangerous drift of an armed anarchy passed off as justice.

You might also be interested in: