Chihuahua State Police Department starts operating at Sentinel Tower in Juárez
Heriberto Perez Lara
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Chihuahua (KVIA) — The Chihuahua State Public Security Secretariat started operations at the new Sentinel Tower, or “Torre Centinela” in Downtown Juárez two weeks ago, a project that presented back in 2022, as ABC-7 previously reported.
During a news conference Monday, the Chihuahua Public Safety Secretary, or Police Chief, Gilberto Loya Chávez along with Adrián Eduardo Lui Chavira, the officer in charge of the Undersecretary of the ‘Centinela’ Platform, presented progress and advances of the new SSPE Chihuahua headquarters in Ciudad Juárez.
Secretary Loya highlighted the “effectiveness” and “efficiency” of the first phase of the move to the new facilities, which began with the deployment of 150 SSPE personnel, who are already operating from the tower. Loya and Lui also emphasized that this “migration process” is being carried out in an orderly manner and without interrupting security and surveillance operations in the state at any time.
According to them, in this initial phase, critical areas of the tower have been put into operation:
The 15th floor, which houses the State Command Center
The 14th floor, designated for the server area and the Undersecretariat of the Centinela Platform
The 13th floor, which houses the Undersecretariat of Intelligence and Police Analysis.
ABC-7 took a tour at the 19th and 13th floors of the tower. The 13th floor showed dozens of intelligence staff and officers working to surveil critical and important areas across the state, not only in Juárez.
Currently, the Centinela Tower project is 95.5% complete overall, with construction levels exceeding 90% from the first floor onward, in addition to 92% completion of the parking area, according to both SSPE officials.
“This infrastructure is the heart of a technological network that covers the entire state, comprised of 8,650 cameras, 98 archways, and various security checkpoints,” SSPE Secretary Loya said.
The relocation of personnel will also continue gradually until all areas are fully occupied.
“This change of administrative and operational headquarters will not affect the services the Secretariat provides to the public, guaranteeing the continuity of state security functions from the new State Police headquarters,” Loya added.
SSPE Chihuahua Secretary Loya mentioned the collaborations they have with international law enforcement agencies, with the U.S., Colombia, and El Salvador, among others to battle transnational crime and criminal organizations harming the border area are “legal and necessary,” adding they only share important information and intelligence.
“I have been very clear on this, international collaboration is legal, it is a matter that is legal and it is also necessary in that order because the need exists, why? Because transnational crime is something that occurs worldwide and we cannot be exempt from having that collaboration or that permanent communication with the different entities,” Chief Loya said.
SSPE Chihuahua has been collaborating along with U.S. federal agencies such as CBP, Border Patrol, FBI, DEA and ATF, among other Texas and New Mexico law enforcement departments, where they have identified four big issues they battle every day.
“From here (Mexico) to there (U.S.), which is a problem for U.S. authorities, is the trafficking of synthetic and non-synthetic drugs and human trafficking and from there (U.S.) to here (Mexico), we also have two problems: arms trafficking and money laundering,” Loya added. “So, since these are crimes that begin on one side of the border but end on the other, that’s why communication is so important, and it’s also so important that everyone does their part to prevent this from happening.”
Secretary Loya expects to have the Sentinel Tower ready in the coming months.
“As I said, we’ll gradually be bringing in the staff of the Public Security Secretariat with the change of headquarters and from there, we’ve started bringing in staff, and as we open floors in an orderly fashion, we’ll bring them in area by area to each of the floors as they open,” Secretary Loya also said.
For the idea of having a new “International Fusion Center” aimed at having foreign law enforcement agencies collaborating here, Loya said. According to him, only the Mexican ‘Cancillería,’ or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) is the entity that can determine which foreign, or international law enforcement agencies can be operating within Mexican territory.
Watch the full ABC-7 Xtra story on ABC-7 at 10.