Gunmen tried to assassinate an executive of a major Mexican plastics processing company. They ambushed the man’s armored Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV on the outskirts of Mexican manufacturing hub Querétaro on Sept. 6.
Early reports indicated that Jesús Calderón Calderón, who launched Industrias Ferroplásticas SA de CV in 1996, was the intended target. But later accounts indicated the victim was Calderón’s son, Jesús Calderón Reyes, who is also a Ferroplásticas executive.
An industry colleague who knows Ferroplásticas well confirmed to Plastics News on Sept. 8 that the victim was Jesús Calderón Reyes.
Calderón was rushed to hospital with several bullet wounds, according to the state of Queretaro’s prosecutor’s office, and is believed to be out of danger. Prosecutors have not commented on details of the attack other than confirming it took place.
One of Calderón’s bodyguards, whose identity was not revealed, was said to be seriously wounded.
A receptionist at the San José hospital in the municipality of Corregidora, where both men were thought to have been admitted, told Plastics News on the evening of Sept. 7 that neither man was a patient at the institution.
The attack happened in broad daylight near the entrance to the Balvanera industrial park in Corregidora. The Ferroplásticas facility is located there.
Mexico City news outlet Proceso posted a dramatic video of the attack on its website. It shows the plastics executive’s bodyguards exchanging automatic rifle fire with the assailants who surrounded the Rolls Royce in several 4x4 vehicles and opened fire before being driven off. Photographs of the Rolls Royce, taken after the shooting, show it peppered with several dozen bullet impacts.
The attack is the second the Calderón family has survived in four years, according to the Reforma newspaper. Jesús Calderón Calderón was abducted in 2020 and released a week later after a ransom was paid. It underscores the dangers prominent business people face in parts of Mexico where law and order appear to have broken down in a number of regions.
Early this year, a prominent member of the Mexican plastics industry told Plastics News that he and his family would emigrate if Mexico’s drift to authoritarianism and the president’s tendency to ride roughshod over electoral rules and regulations continued unchecked.
According to its website, Ferroplásticas employs 1,300 in Querétaro. Its activities include injection molding, blow molding and extrusion and it makes and repairs its own molds.
The company claims to be the main supplier of Avon México, once a subsidiary of Avon Products Inc., which Natura & Co. Holding S.A., of São Paulo, acquired in 2020. Ferroplásticas also says it is Avon Centroamérica’s main supplier.
The Avon manufacturing facility in Mexico is based in Celaya, 30 miles west of Querétaro. Avon opened a research and development center there this year.
An acquaintance of the Calderón family and its business interests in Querétaro told Plastics News Sept. 9 that the family is very well known and respected in the city and state.
“Mr. Calderón Senior has been president of [nation-wide industrial chamber] Canacintra in Querétaro and is a founding member and president of the Instituto Queretano de Herramentales (IQH),” which aims to develop professionals and technology for the local plastics and other industries, he said in an email.
“The Calderón family is a well-respected family in the Querétaro business and plastics community. Mr. Calderón Senior is a passionate and hard-working man who built his plastics business many years ago.”
He said the senior Calderón had helped develop the plastics industry and markets across Mexico.
“His son, Jesús Jr., who is also very involved in the family company, was the target of the attack,” the acquaintance added.
The man described himself as a vice president of the plastics cluster in Querétaro and one of the founding members of IQH. In a subsequent email, the acquaintance said the attack on the Calderón family had left the plastics industry community in Querétaro “in shock and very sad.”In a recorded statement (recorded Friday, Sept. 6) which the Querétaro state prosecutor's office emailed to Plastics News on Sept. 9, State Prosecutor Victor de Jesús Hernández said the attack occurred at about midday.
He said the entire security apparatus in the state had been alerted and a manhunt for the perpetrators was underway. A vehicle used in the ambush had been found and was being searched, he said.
He declined to say ("out of respect for the family's privacy") whether the target of the attack was the senior Calderón or his son.
