José Babel Mireles Valverde

José Manuel Mireles Valverde was a Mexican medical doctor and leader and founder of the paramilitary self-defense groups that fought against the Knights Templar Cartel, and other cartels, in the state of Michoacán and others, in México. Mireles emerged as an important figure within the self-defense militias during the fall of 2013 as self-defense groups were fighting against the Knights Templar Cartel in Apatzingán and other municipalities on the Michoacán coast. He described his motivation to participate in the armed self-defense groups as stemming from the abuse of the Knights Templar Cartel against himself and his family, himself having been kidnapped by the cartel and several of his family members murdered. This impelled him to take up arms in defense of his community of Tepalcatepec. On 25 November 2020, a Mexican government agency confirmed that Mireles had died from "the effects of COVID-19".