Police say that a beheading in Arizona is tied to a Mexican drug cartel

Authorities have determined that a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment was killed for stealing drugs from a Mexican cartel, in a gruesome example of drug cartel violence spilling over the border. Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy, 38, stole 400 pounds of marijuana and some crystal meth from a drug cartel while telling the cartel that the drugs had been seized by the Border Patrol, according to a Chandler police report. The cartel found out Cota-Monroy had actually stolen the drugs and hired men to kidnap and kill him in Nogales, Mexico. But Cota-Monroy was able to talk his way out of being killed, saying he'd pay back the money and use his house for collateral, the report says. But the house wasn't Cota-Monroy's and he fled to the Phoenix area, leading the cartel to hire assassins to go to Arizona, befriend Cota-Monroy and kill him. Cota-Monroy's body was found in a Chandler apartment — his severed head a couple of feet away. He also had apparently been bludgeoned and stabbed in the head, and had defensive wounds on his hands. Police said the cartel Cota-Monroy stole from is known as the PEI-Estatales/El Chapo drug trafficking organization, and that Cota-Monroy had been known to traffic drugs for his sister's lover, known as "El Jefe," Spanish for the boss. One man, Crisantos Moroyoqui, has been charged in the killing, and three others are believed to have fled to Mexico. The other suspects were identified as Jose David Castro Reyes, 25; Isai Aguilar Morales, 22, and a man between the ages of 20 and 27 known only by the nickname "El Joto," a derogatory Spanish term for a gay man.