allende mexico massacre victims

Published September 10, 2021. Police witnesses described a variety of illegal activities they facilitated for the Zetasfrom the most shocking to the most mundanein exchange for relatively modest bribes. In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common, the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand out. The tenth anniversary of the Allende killings comes as allegations of narcotics-related corruption among top Mexican officials have brought U.S.-Mexico security ties to their lowest point in many years. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. Hours later, his daughter was one of the last people to see him alive. They began to see Allende not as an isolated spasm of violence but rather as one of the most explosive episodes of a wider problem of criminal violence and systematic subversion of legal authorities throughout the region. Another explained that he stopped cooperating with the Zetas after they kidnapped his father. Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. On March 20, 2011, my husband and I went to the Garrison of Kilometer 53 to talk with the military officials and we told them what had happened. The DEA claims credit for helping Mexico make the arrest, but would not discuss what steps were taken to investigate the 2011 intelligence leak that led to the massacre in Allende. He told her to cancel the birthday party they were planning for her the next week. And also El [Chucho] killed a person, but I did not see who. One U.S. law enforcement officialsaid that [Reyes] Arzates corruption as the highest-ranking officer in the MFPs Sensitive Investigative Unit allowed violent cartels to continue the flow of drugs through the region without consequence.. Contemporaneous records from the Mexican military, obtained through a separate access-to-information request, confirm that the Army receivedmultiple reports about the ongoing violence in and around Allende. One of the guys that went with Pala, who was nicknamed [El Cabezn,] forced me to kill one of the men, and [forced Chucho to do the same.] Witnesses Described Defendant's Participation in the 2011 Allende Massacre, Where Over 100 Men, Women, and Children Were Slaughtered by the Zetas Cartel PLANO, Texas - A Mexican national and high-ranking member of the Los Zetas cartel received a life sentence for drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced Acting . "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. Others were simply picked up off the street. Germn Zaragoza Snchez, better known as El Canelo, was a top Zetas boss in Allende and managed a group hawks who monitored and reported on the movements of state and federal security forces. Ten years later, the case has wide-ranging implications after investigative reporting in the U.S. and Mexico have linked the massacre to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and top Mexican security institutions. In 2011, Drug Enforcement Agency officials informed Mexican . Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. We told him, Yes. And I asked him why he, as the person in direct charge of the city, the top authority, had not asked for help from the military or the state or federal government, since I had explained that we did not have the weapons or the resources to take on these people? The wife of another victim, a heavy machinery mechanic who worked for the Garza family, also went looking for her husband on the morning of the March 19. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . Whereas, according to a 2016 interview of Coahuila attorney general Homero Ramos Gloria, the Mexican government has identified only 28 human remains and 54 . Her brother-in-law, who also worked for the Garzas, arrived later and told her that her husband had been kidnapped. ProPublica and National Geographic set out to piece together how the U.S. contributed to a massacre executed by a drug cartel in Allende, Mexico. June 19, 2017. And after that I left.- Complaint of Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, May 25, 2011. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Special thanks to former National Security Archiveintern Emily Taylor for her assistance with this collection. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . Some cooperated more than others. Both in charge of Los Zetas, Allende's is a much less known story. The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. For which reason I left the circus and I parked about two blocks from the house And outside the house I saw a red, four-door, Chevrolet pick-up truck with a bull bar [tumba burros] on the front. And once they had killed the people, between [Chucho] and I we began to spray the diesel and the gasoline all around the house and the bodega with the bodies inside After this, we set fire with the help of diesel and gasoline to the bodega with all those dead people inside, and we were there for many hours until we cooked all the people, and with so much fire that it melted the roof of the bodega.- Declaration of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014, El Canelo admitted to having helped burn the body of at least one victim. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. She told me that around 5:30 in the afternoon she came across the pick-up truck that came for my husband, and that had been circulating up and down Calle Independencia, and that her father was on board the truck together with about five other people, and that he was in the cabin in the back, in the middle, and that the truck was followed by two black late-model cars, Malibu or Impala, and the three vehicles headed for the mountain; this being the last time they saw my husband.- Complaint of wife of victim Rodolfo Snchez Robles, November 10, 2014. [6] CDN is reportedly led by Juan Gerardo Trevio Chvez (El Huevo), nephew of former Zetas leaders Miguel ngel Trevio Morales (Z-40) and Omar Trevio Morales (Z-42), according to this press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Others had nothing whatsoever to do with the Garza family and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In exchange, Reyes passed DEA intelligence to the criminal groups, including, in at least one case, sensitive information about a pending DEA investigation. In 2020, a U.S. court also indicted Reyes Arzates boss, former public security minister Genaro Garca Luna, for taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes from Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn. Many needed the money. Later on the following Sunday, with all of those people locked up at the ranch, around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, I accompanied Comandante 7 and [Comandante Pala], together with various estacas, among others that I recall were [El Canelo, El Cubano, El Chilero, El Panda, El Ruso, El Flacaman, El Cabe and El Meno,] together with a municipal police patrol [in which were riding police officers Guadalupe valos Orozco, La Lupe, and Jess Alejandro Bernal Guerrero,] to a house on [Cuauhtmoc] Street in the Center of Allende, which is where Vctor Garza lived. You know who they are., Still other witnesses said that they saw Lozano standing calmly outside his house on the night of March 20 talking on a mobile phone while the Zetas sacked a house across the street. He said the process reduced the corpses to pure butter., [I]n those days they kidnapped many people [Where] they killed them and burned them was a ranch There, they made me burn one body since I saw what was happening Others were burned at the [deleted] ranch, but nothing was left, because they told me that only pure butter remained after cooking them.- Declaration of Germn Zaragoza Snchez (El Canelo), April 8, 2014, 10:00. jschwartz@statesman.com. [15] In 2017, Zetas member Marciano Millan Vsquez (El Chano) was convicted on federal charges in the United States that included his involvement in the Allende violence. A study from the Human Rights Clinic of the University of Texas Law School examined the trial transcripts of Zetas members prosecuted for drug trafficking, money laundering, and homicide in U.S. federal courts. Arriving at the ranch that night with three others from the department, Herrera said he could see that what was burning was a small room that was near the ranch. He saw that there were units of the municipal police out front. For reference to U.S. training and other background, see our previous Electronic Briefing Book, especially Document 1 and Document 2. Mexican Federal Police collect ashes, bone fragments and other bits of evidence from the Garza Ranch on January 28, 2014 (Source: Document 40: Field Criminology Opinion Report, January 28, 2014). Subscribe to our newsletter and join other 2,442 Justice in Mexico readers! Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. It is not clear why members of the the military unit thatexamined the ranch did not secure the property or, evidently, take any additional steps to comprehend what was happening in Allende. The money went through the [police] commander, which he then delivered to the RTs [shift commanders] and from them to the rest of us police officials. What they saw, before fleeing for their lives, was the beginning of the grimly methodical process often used by the Zetas to destroy the bodies of their victimsto eliminate the primary evidence of the crime. One former Allende police official interviewed during the investigation described how the payments were made. And he was waiting for his brother-in-law [Later,] he told me that they spent the entire night looking for his family; that he had entered the ranch from the back through an opening, and that he realized that he was alone in the ranch house, and that he was there with the expectation that they were holding his sister and his niece and nephews all with the last name Espinoza Garza, who on the day of the acts were seven months, three years, and six years of age.- Complaint of Sarah Angelita Lira, November 11, 2014. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. Oneformer member of the Allende policeinterviewed in July 2014 told investigators that from the moment that I joined the ranks of the municipal police I realized that all of the people I mentioned previously, including the mayor, the police director, police commander, and the shift commanders, were linked to the Zetas criminal organization., One of the first witnesses to talk about the police departments links to Los Zetas was anAllende municipal official in charge of road maintenance, who in January 2014 told investigators that everyone knows about [the March 2011 Allende massacre] but is too afraid to say anything.. He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. Elizondos wife,Etelvina Rodrguez, said she soon realized that many of the wives of those who worked at the Garza ranch were looking for their husbands.. 8 min de lectura. The above account was confirmed by several others, including one of the shift commanders. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico," "Somos." tells the story of a 2011 mass killing in Allende, in the Mexican state of Coahuila . Several said the police director ordered that officers should not do anything or say anything about the carnage. About five estacas[9]participated, and with [deleted] and [deleted] ten more joined. While many of the corpses were probably destroyed in these larger fires, the Los Zetas cook interviewed on September 19, 2014,gave an especially detailed description of how he and El Chango together burned the bodies of at least three victims in individual barrels filled with diesel fuel. Three and a half years later, what stood out to these firefighters was the conspicuous police presence, the brutal treatment of the captives, and the threats directed at them by Zetas members. Allende massacre. Of particular importance was the November 2014 testimony of a woman from Piedras Negras whose husband, himself a member of the Zetas, had been kidnapped, detained, and later killed by the group in 2010. [7] GAFE stands for Grupo Aeromvil de Fuerzas Especiales (Airmobile Special Forces Group). A. U.S. authorities inadvertently helped to cause the deaths of thousands of people in Allende, Mexico in 2011 after information they gathered was leaked to the Zetas cartel's leaders, according to journalist Ginger Thompson. This same Allende city officer tried once more the following day, advising the mayor to tell someone about what was happening; that he talk to the governor. [8] The CNDH report does not name any of the victims, perpetrators or other witnesses it cites. Criminals were shooting up the street and two police officers . Zaragoza said up to 60 Zetas assassins may have participated in the Allende operation, sweeping up people in the surrounding towns and dropping them off at the Garza Ranch. So I went to my friends house who lives only two blocks away to tell her this; but in the few minutes I was with my friend, my daughter [called] to tell me that her father was going on a trip [S]o I headed home, and when I was about 50 meters away, a white, double-cab, Tundra pick-up truck arrived, and I see my husband leave the house with his dirty clothes on. And when I finished tying him up, I put him in the back of the truck, and there were already bodies in the trunk.- Declaration of Zetas member, September 19, 2014. One installment revealedthat officials from the Mexican Army and the top civilian intelligence agency (CISEN) within days knew key details about the massacre, including that Poncho Cuellar had fled to the U.S. with a stash of cartel money and was talking to the DEA. Upon seeing us, these people began to shout that we leave the ranch, that we go fuck our mothers, and that we were not to respond to any reports [of fires] that are made.- Declaration of former Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014, 11:37, De Len said they watched as the Zetas continued to unload large quantities of fuel even as the bodega burned.. The study sought to determine the treatment and reparations of the State to the victims of the massacre of 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, in August 2010, and the disappearance of an unknown number of people in Allende, Coahuila, in March 2011. He said that Los Zetas commanders then forced him and another Zeta, who he identified as Chucho, to kill two of the hostages, including Everardo Elizondo, the ranch hand who had stopped by the ranch to prepare for the cockfight. Local media, fearing reprisals, did not report the violence until years later. To date, only a handful of Zetas and corrupt police officials have been convicted in a case that involves dozens of crime scenes, hundreds of victims, and the documented participation of numerous Zetas and public officials. Members of the criminal group Los Zetas could be seen unloading barrels next to a storage shed near the back of the property. The George Washington University Garcas friend, Everardo Elizondo, worked part-time at Luis Garzas ranch and also raised fighting cocks. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. But he never came back. The attack . According to multiple local media reports, the massacre happened on Wednesday afternoon when an armed group opened fire at the city hall of San Miguel Totolapan, resulting in the . Oct. 9, 2016. From the highway, smoke could be seen coming from the interior of the ranch. Most of the victims were later shot and killed, after which the Zetas crudely cremated the bodies, dousing them in gasoline and diesel fuel and burning them overnight until nothing remained but ashes and tiny bone fragments. Edited by Michael Evans. According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. Later, [El Comandante Pala (ordered) El Ruso, El Blue, Chaln, Cabe, Meo, Flacaman, Cubano and Canelo] to take them from the house and walk them to the inside of a bodega near the house, and later to kill all of them, shooting them in the head. Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. Zcalo, a regional paper in Saltillo, Coahuila, also published portions of the testimony. That he and the then-mayor of the city had a meeting with people from Los Zetas. Investigators firstquestioned LozanoandTrevioabout the massacre in 2012. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. Ten years ago, the Mexican municipality of Allende was the site of one of the worst human rights atrocities ever seen in the country:a three-day rampage that punctuateda larger wave of violencein which theLos Zetas criminal groupkidnapped, murdered, and later burned the bodies of as many as 300 victims, many of them from Allende but also from nearby towns like Villa Unin and Piedras Negras, a city 35 miles to the north that lies just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico, by Ginger Thompson, ProPublica, June 12, 2017. A disturbing report released today by researchers at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico provides new details about a 2011 massacre in Allende, a quiet Mexican ranching town less than an hour's drive from the United States, and suggests that many more people were killed in the incident than estimated by Mexican authorities. Diego Osorno, a reporter from the newspaperMilenio, has examined various new sources of evidence related to the Allende case in a series of recent articles. The mayor of Allende in the Cinco Manantiales region of Coahuila said at the time of the slaughter that he was helpless to prevent the massacre. He always knew what was happening here.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 17:30. I want to point out that all of the police at that time were getting money from the Zetas, some by obligation and some by choice. Amunicipal official present at the March 22 meetingsaid that the mayor was upset because various members of staff had left the offices on Monday [March 21, 2011], [and] that he had not given any indication that they should go out. About the violence, the mayor reportedly said, Well, thats between them, which is to say, alluding to members of organized crime, you have to stay calm. But the group did not take or agree to take any type of action with respect to what was happening or to notify someone else about what was happening in the city, according to the testimony. The Zetas organizational structure includes counterintelligence, intelligence and tactical enforcement units.. But a2017 investigation by Ginger Thompson of ProPublicafound that Cuellar and Junior weretargeted for another reason: Los Zetas leaders had discovered that members of Cuellars cell were cooperating with agents of the DEA and had provided them with secret PIN codes allowing the DEA to track the mobile phones of top Zetas leaders. When known, names have been added in brackets. He went on to say that now that Mexico has reformed its National Security Law, authorities from the U.S. could find themselves connected to another massacre similar to the incident in Allende. The official, town council secretaryEvaristo Rodrguez Chapa, said he called police director Trevio to let him know what was happening, to which he replied: Dont even fart, you asshole. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. And after five or six hours during which the corpses were cooked it was then around five or six oclock in the morning. Thompsons reporting and the U.S. investigations strongly suggest that the former SIU chief may have been part of a criminal conspiracy that sparked the Allende massacre. He got in the truck and returned to Allende, or at least thats what I think I dont know what happened to [Vctor] nor to his parents. She said she later learned he had been kidnapped from their house and turned over to a criminal group, probably Los Zetas. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . It was around March 15, 2011, the then-director of the municipal police called all the elements to a meeting in the offices of the municipal police. She told investigators what she learned from a series of telephone conversations with her husbands captor. Passing by the Garza property, she noticed a group of workers gathered there, waiting to be paid. [W]e all went in shooting and tied up all the people that were found inside the ranch. Among them were the director, Roberto Guadalupe Trevio, shift commander Mara Guadalupe valos, known as La Lupe, and officer Bertha Rosario Tllez Vega, known as La Chayo.[1]. Forensic specialists from the Mexican Federal Police examine one of the primary crime scenes from the 2011 Allende massacre on January 28, 2014. [4]Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) has sinceposted the declassified volumeson its website, but they are not easy to find without a direct link. And together with the patrols there were many cars and trucks both inside and outside the ranch, and these people carried long arms from which I deduced that these people were from Los Zetas.- Declaration of Allende firefighter Jess Gerardo De Len Ramos, December 17, 2014, 14:50. The six-part miniseries examines the lives of the victims of a cartel massacre at the Mexican border town of Allende. I dont know who those people were, just that they were people that the police detained or his own people that he ordered be locked up when they handled themselves badly, or people with whom he had a disagreement [tuviera pedos]. Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. However, I'm mortified at the . The mini-series is created by James Schamus, who divides the real-life emotional fable into 6 . This was at about 7:30 or 8:00 AM on Saturday, March [19], 2011 Just past the entrance I could see some Allende municipal police trucks, and beneath these were armed people who I recognized as police.- Complaint of wife of victim Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, May 23, 2014. U.S. Prosecutions Bring Mexico Corruption into Focus Netflix drama series Somos. San Miguel de Allende might be voted the nicest town in Mexico by many travel magazines, but it is not safe at the moment and I advise you not to come here right now. And outside the house there were four people with long arms who were dressed in black and had on bulletproof vests. They watched as gang members led their victims into a larger shed near the back. . In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. No one is sure exactly how many were killed, and the methods used by the Zetas to dispose of the bodiesincinerating them in barrels of gasoline and diesel fuelmake it unlikely that there will ever be a definitive count of victims.[2]. [12] While the names of Zetas, police officials, and witnesses are for the most part redacted in the volumes released through CNDH, a previously published portion of El Pjaros declaration reveals some of those redacted names. And you could see that they were unloading large barrels, and the odor of diesel or gasoline was evident. One evening in March 2011, dozens of assassins tied to the infamous Zetas drug cartel began to arrive in Allende, a small town situated in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila, a lucrative . 92110 United States [email protected] +1 619-260-2299. Another explained how the money was divided up among members of the Allende police. But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although many of the pages have been redacted by CNDH for public release). Subscribe. Outside the ranch entrance, the firefighters spotted officers and vehicles from the Allende police department. But he did not say anything to me. Other witnesses confirmed the testimony of the police commander. I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. I could see that the owners of the ranch were there, since I could identify [Jos Luis Garza,] Mrs. [Alma Patricia,] their son [Julio Csar Garza, Rodolfo Garza, and] his daughter, whose name was [Nora Liliana Garza de la Torre.]

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