José Francisco Ruiz Massieu

José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (Acapulco, Guerrero, July 22 1946 – Mexico City, September 28 1994) was a Mexican political figure. He was governor of Guerrero from 1987 to 1993. He then served as the secretary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1994. His term ended with his assassination.

José Francisco Ruiz Massieu was the brother-in-law of Carlos Salinas and was due to become the PRI majority leader in the Chamber of Deputies. All that changed on September 28 1994 when he was murdered by a gunman in front of a party building one block from swank Paseo de la Reforma avenue in downtown Mexico City.

Within two weeks, PRI Deputy Manuel Muñoz Rocha was linked to the assassination. Two weeks later, the assistant attorney general investigating the case, Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the assassinated politician, resigned. He asserted that he had proof that high officials in the PRI were blocking his investigation. On February 28, 1995, Raúl Salinas, the brother of former President Carlos Salinas, was arrested as the mastermind of the Ruiz Massieu assassination. Three days later Mario Ruiz Massieu was arrested in Newark, NJ, USA, boarding a plane to Madrid while carrying USD $46,000 in unreported cash. The government charged him with impeding the investigation into his brother's murder. The government also found seventeen million dollars in U.S. bank accounts linked to Mario Ruiz Massieu. These facts suggested the involvement of drug traffickers in the Ruiz Massieu conspiracy.