María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa is the former first lady of Iguala, a city in Guerrero, Mexico. Pineda Villa and her husband, were accused by Attorney General of Mexico Jesús Murillo Karam, of being the "probable masterminds" behind the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping and disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College. Pineda Villa and her husband fled hours after the reported abductions and were arrested by federal authorities on November 4, 2014. The prosecution's investigation indicates that Mayor Abarca ordered local police to stop the students from protesting a political event and speech Pineda Villa was scheduled to hold. The police allegedly attacked the students' buses when they entered Iguala and then delivered them to members of the local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos. Along with her familial ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, confessions by detained gang members and police officers have revealed Pineda Villa as the "principle operator" of the Guerreros Unidos.