Gotham’s got nothing on Jalisco right now. In the town of Lagos de Moreno, an anonymous vigilante has spent the past ten days hunting down suspected motorcycle thieves and leaving them duct-taped to streetlight poles for police to find in the morning.
The pattern began on June 13, when officers discovered a man bound to a post with a cardboard sign labeling him a “ratero,” Spanish for “thief,” according to local reports. Four more men have turned up the same way since, some gagged, some with the word scrawled on them in marker, and in at least one case, two men taped back to back with a stolen motorcycle parked nearby as evidence.
Mexican reporter Luis Cardenas, who shared images of the scene on X, captured what a lot of locals seem to be feeling. “After the lack of help from the authorities, an anonymous hero started hunting down motorcycle thieves,” he wrote. “So far, he’s already taken down five in ten days, and they call him the Batman of Lagos de Moreno.”
MexicAn Police Are Treating ‘Batman’s Targets as Victims, Not Criminals
Jalisco’s Secretary of Public Security, Juan Pablo Hernández, has confirmed police are actively investigating and tracking two vehicles believed to be connected. He’s also made a point of clarifying that the bound men are currently classified as victims, not confirmed criminals, and that nobody gets to play judge and jury on a public street. The men were eventually freed and treated for injuries, including some signs of beating, though it’s still unclear if they’re now facing charges of their own.
Whether this is one masked crusader or a small crew working together is still up for debate. Police have floated the idea of a group effort, though the men found taped up haven’t offered any details either way.
Mexico has seen this kind of thing before. Back in 2018, Puerto Vallarta had its own wave of bound, stripped men left tied to lampposts with the letter “R” shaved into their heads. That case was never solved, and given how this one’s playing out online, with people split between cheering the vigilante and warning about where this leads, there’s a decent chance this one ends the same way.