Yucatán Businesspeople Summoned Over Land Dispute

Mérida, Yucatán — The Agrarian Tribunal of Mérida has summoned six businesspeople accused of dispossessing 224.1 hectares of ejido lands from Sacalum, located in the municipality of the same name approximately 59.3 kilometers from the Periférico Sur of Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico.

Judicial Proceedings Initiated

In an edict published on Friday, August 29, 2025, in the Diario Oficial del Estado de Yucatán (DOEY), the Tribunal Unitario Agrario No. 34, based in Mérida, announced that Fernando Várguez Tun, Heydi Yasmín Chablé Anguas, and Guadalupe Manzanilla Andrade—the president, secretary, and treasurer of the Sacalum agrarian nucleus—have filed a lawsuit against Mauricio Siqueff Moisés, Rodrigo Montalvo Vales, Abraham Hadad Trujillo, Miguel Ángel Ricalde Jure, Jorge Hurtado Montalvo, and Luis Alberto Sierra Sauri.

In case file 1857/2024, the agrarian judicial authority states that the Sacalum ejido is demanding the absolute nullity of the general assembly minutes of ejido members dated March 30, 2018. The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the 224-41-87.775 hectares of land affected by a change of purpose in the minutes from the same date are the property of the agrarian nucleus of Sacalum, in the municipality of Sacalum, Yucatán.

A Mérida-based lawyer with experience in land litigation consulted for this report clarified that the measurement 224-41-87.775 ha refers to 224 hectares, 41 ares, and 87.775 centiares of ejido land. To provide a sense of the scale of the disputed area, it amounts to 2,244,187.775 square meters (m2). This surface area could accommodate the construction of approximately 18,701 houses, each measuring eight meters by 20 meters (120 m2). This figure, in turn, is equivalent to 2.2 percent of the total 837,067 private dwellings that Yucatán had in 2020, according to the Inegi Census.

Profiles of the Accused Businesspeople

The defendants include several prominent local figures.

Mauricio Siqueff Moisés is the owner of Creaciones Siqueff and director of Latinoamericana de Negocios, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Rodrigo Montalvo Vales was accused in 2019 by the ejido of Texán (Hunucmá) of being part of a network of businesspeople who infiltrate agrarian nuclei with the objective of buying land, according to the archives of Diario de Yucatán.

Furthermore, in 2024, ejido members from Hunucmá denounced that Abraham Hadad Trujillo and Miguel Ángel Ricalde Jure, among other businesspeople, took possession of 2,000 hectares of ejido lands through an assembly in which even deceased ejido members were recorded as voting.

Abraham Hadad Trujillo is also the president of Inmobiliaria Conkal, a company being sued by Arturo Barradas Cubillos in a case being heard in the Third Mercantile Court, as published in the same DOEY on June 11, 2025.

Jorge Hurtado Montalvo made news in July 2019 when his boat, which he had left anchored in front of his beach house in Telchac, was stolen in the early morning hours.

Luis Alberto Sierra Sauri is the son of former Yucatán Governor Dulce María Sauri Riancho. He has previously been accused of appropriating lands from the Hunucmá ejido and properties in the neighboring state of Quintana Roo through irregular operations. In January 2025, it was revealed that federal justice denied Sierra Sauri the injunction he sought against a presidential decree that prohibits construction on plots he purchased in a protected area of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo, during the governorship of Roberto Borge Angulo, who is currently imprisoned for organized crime.

Scheduled Hearing and Legal Warnings

According to the August 29 edict, the Agrarian Tribunal has summoned the six businesspeople to appear at a hearing scheduled for October 6, 2025, at 10 a.m. at the tribunal's office located at Calle 29 number 145, between streets 32 and 34, in the Buenavista neighborhood of Mérida. They are required to appear to answer the lawsuit filed by the executive committee of the Sacalum ejido.

The Tribunal also warned them that failure to appear without just cause could result in the allegations of the opposing party being taken as true, in accordance with Article 185, Section V, of Mexico's Agrarian Law.

Finally, the Mérida Agrarian Tribunal required the accused businesspeople to designate an address for receiving notifications no later than the day of the hearing. Failure to do so will result in notifications being made via public court postings.