Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. This article was posted in Borderland Beat mainpage on March 26, 2011. 6/27/2017 (written by Lucy Clement La Rosa)- Over six years ago, a small ranching community near the Texas border of Mexico bore witness to the vengeful assault of Las Zetas, one of Mexico's historically violent drug trafficking organizations. Another explained how the money was divided up among members of the Allende police. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. I n the dead of night on Jan. 28, 1918, a group of white Texas Rangers, U.S. military men and local ranchers burst into the homes of Mexican and Mexican American . Arts & Culture. One former Allende police official interviewed during the investigation described how the payments were made. Source: ProPublica. El Gobierno de Mxico ofreci este jueves una disculpa pblica a los familiares de las vctimas de la masacre de Allende, una comunidad del norteo estado de Coahuila donde entre el 18 y el 20 de marzo del 2011 alrededor de 300 personas fueron masacradas por narcotraficantes. From the highway, smoke could be seen coming from the interior of the ranch. Gunmen open fire in a roadside eatery, leaving nine customers dead in pools of blood. . That was just one week in late January when the government said Guanajuato, which has around 5% of Mexico's population, suffered 20% of its homicides. According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. Among the evidence posted today are the first complaints filed by the loved ones of those who went missing, the sworn declarations of Zetas members, Allende police and other city officials, the statements of firefighters and others who witnessed the violence, along with hundreds of pages of forensic reports, crime scene photos and related material. The 2011 San Fernando massacre, also known as the second massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico in March 2011. Some of those interviewed during the investigation said the rampage started as an act of revenge by top Zetas leaders against Cuellar, Junior, and other deputies, who they accused of pocketing millions of dollars in stolen drug money. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. It is not a series of drug traffickers, but of their victims: of those who try to survive . We continued to advance until we arrived at the ranch, where I saw that there were several police patrols from this city, colored white and blue, and a number of police, among others I remember [deleted], [Mara Guadalupe Avalos,] [deleted,] the director And it seemed like the police were guarding the place. All threereceived lengthy sentences, but with no bodies to build a murder case, they were convicted only of aggravated kidnapping, a charge that seems woefully inadequate given the nature of the crimes. But a few minutes later he called me saying that neither his father nor his sister were answering and that there were many trucks and armed men guarding the entrance to the ranch. [His mother] told him that they were shooting up the house I could hear the shots and that she was shouting very desperately. 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. And also El [Chucho] killed a person, but I did not see who. The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . And after five or six hours during which the corpses were cooked it was then around five or six oclock in the morning. As many as 40 houses and seven ranches were sacked and burned, according to aMarch 2018 CNDH report, the inhabitants beaten and dragged awaykidnapped in broad daylight. [1] Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. 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. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. Outside the ranch entrance, the firefighters spotted officers and vehicles from the Allende police department. One of the homes destroyed in Allende in 2011. shares. The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records compiled by Mexican prosecutors in the state of Coahuila.[3]. Vasquez then ordered that the father be killed. An important moment seems to have come in March 2015, when state investigatorssaw a familiar patternemerge in three seemingly unrelated cases. That they did not want to see us going out to extinguish the houses. He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. He just asked us if we knew about what was happening. When known, names have been added in brackets. He told her about other people from the region who the Zetas had kidnapped and killed, including a pregnant teenager and the nephew of the former mayor of Piedras Negras. Both in charge of Los Zetas, Allende's is a much less known story. [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. Known as El Pjaro (The Bird), Jimnez was hired by the Zetas in the summer of 2010 as a halcn (hawk) to monitor the movements of rival gangs, state and federal security forces, and anything else that might threaten Los Zetas. A center for car manufacturing northwest of Mexico City, Guanajuato averaged at least nine homicides a day in 2020, one of the highest murder rates in the country. The series, called Somos., which means "we are," was . Some cooperated more than others. The plan, he said, was to kidnap and kill everyone. When more Zetas and various patrols of the municipal police arrived later they knocked down the main gate of the Garza ranch by ramming it with a truck, according to Jimnez. We continued to advance until we reached the ranch, where I saw that there were a number of blue and white municipal police patrol cars and several police officers And these police, its like they were guarding the place. In April of 2014 . 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]. 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. He did not take my opinion into consideration, and no one else said anything. On the night of March 20, 2011, four firefighters arrived at a ranch along a stretch of rural highway linking the northern Mexico towns of Allende and Villa Unin. . " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. 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 . And you could see that they were unloading large barrels, and the odor of diesel or gasoline was evident. And what I did, in that place, together with [Chucho] was carry containers filled with gasoline and diesel to the bodega, which was filled with hay. Fax: 202/994-7005Contact by email. Elvira Espinoza and her husband were among the first to inform federal authorities about the violence, telling investigators that she and her husband reported the disappearance of Arturo, Liliana and the three children to the military garrison along Highway 57, just outside of Allende. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. In 2019, the state had a homicide rate of about 61 . [5] The Mexican government signaled its intention to soften some of the more severe restrictions imposed by the new law. But as the investigation picked up steam in 2014, dozens of people, including local firefighters, law enforcement officers, civilian eyewitnesses, and municipal officials, came forward to describe a city government almost completely immersed in the criminal structure of Los Zetas, including the mayor and top police officials. I still love Mexico. 0:04. September 29, 2020, Five Years Later, the Search Continues The acrid odor of diesel fuel hung in the air. 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 government should do more to find them. Oct. 27: A police officer is seen outside a car wash after gunmen burst into the shop and killed at least 15 people in Tepic, Mexico. Photograph via . They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. See Vanguardia, March 18, 2019.. She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record with over 20,000 homicides so far. Following the title sequence is a short paragraph introducing the story of Allende, a Mexican border town unexpectedly overtaken by a powerful drug cartel that . -Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014. The collection is at once a narrow and graphic examination of the events of March 18-20 and a broader look at the combination of bribery, intimidation, and ruthless violence used by Los Zetas (and now, CDN) to turn local security forces into instruments of their criminal operations. Or do you want the same thing to happen to you or to your families?-Declaration of Allende fire chief, December 17, 2014. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. Finally, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice recently confirmed, in a FOIA denial letter to the National Security Archive, that its investigation of the DEAs links to cartel violence in Mexicofirst announced in 2018is ongoing, a probe that may have significant implications for the Allende case and for U.S.-Mexico security cooperation more broadly. And they went to the Ranch but did not find anyone, and told us that they had scoured the place but had not found anyone.- Complaint of Elvira Espinoza, November 4, 2011. The situation was especially dire in Piedras Negras, where Los Zetas had turned the state prison into a center of operations. Lilianas husband, Arturo, had also been unable to reach his wife or her parents. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. He said that this was an injustice, since he was just a little boy. THE DOCUMENTS. [T]hey gave [Trevio] a quota of 10,000 pesos [about $850 USD] every 20 days, and he did not get involved in what [deleted] was doing. 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 . Oct. 9, 2016. 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. See reference here. Villa Unin, just a 20-minute drive from Allende, has been the site of numerous acts of violence linked to the CDN in recent years. Washington, D.C., March 18, 2021 - 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 wave of violence in which the criminal group known as Los Zetas kidnapped, murdered, and later burned the bodies of an estimated 300 . Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). [T]he municipal police received monthly payments of amounts that ranged from 2,000 to 3,000 pesos, and these were delivered in yellow envelopes [W]hen they arrived to divide it up they said, the little chicks [los pollitos] have arrived.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 15:20. An Allende police radio operator who worked closely with the shift commanders said in his declaration that a ranking Zetas member[17]would sometimes come by the police station and take people from city jail cells with the full knowledge of the police director and commander, both of whom, he said, were paid by the Zetas. In March 2011, gunmen from the Zetas Cartel slaughtered innocent men, women and children in the small Mexican town of Allende in retaliation for the betrayal. The files depict a town almost completely beholden to LosZetasfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. Relatives of victims wait in anguish for news after a shooting July 1 at a drug rehabilitation center . Sergio Aguayo is a prominent Mexican human rights investigator at the Colegio de Mexico, which last year launched an independent probe into the Allende massacre. In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . They are included here in brackets. 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. Leaving aside the role of the DEA and the wider implications of the case, todays posting focuses on the most revealing documents among the facts-on-the-ground evidence gathered by the state of Coahuila. Or do you want the same thing to happen to you and your family? And they also told us that we were prohibited from going out to any reports. De Len said that he already knew that all of the municipal police of Allende were associated with or worked for the Zetas., When I saw all those police I realized that they were keeping watch or guarding the place, that is to say the [Garza] ranch In addition to the police I already mentioned, I noticed that there were more people wearing civilian clothes, some hooded, some not. 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. Prosecutors said at least a dozen specially trained police officials may also have been involved. 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. This story was originally published by ProPublica. There was also a man by the name of [Everardo Elizondo,] who raised fighting cocks, and [Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez] And how the people from the Zetas were shouting, hitting and mistreating these people!-Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter Luis Gerardo Herrera Estrada, November 23, 2014, The chief of the fire department, Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, told investigators in a revised statement that, just like his colleagues, he was able to identify many of the faces he saw there, including the director and other top officials from the Allende police department. At the moment the cooking of the corpses was finished, the ashes were thrown in a well, and later covered with earth, and they flattened it so that no one could see anything.- Declaration of Zetas member, September 19, 2014, The focus on eliminating physical evidence and destroying crime scenes almost certainly played at least an ancillary role in impeding justice in the Allende case. Some portions of these files have been excerpted elsewhere, including in reports from the CNDH and the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), which cites many of these same records.But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although . And out of fear that they would do something to me if I disobeyed orders, I had to kill a person, that being Everardo Elizondo, who was about 30 or 35 years old, to whom I gave a shot in the head. Mexican President Consoles Family of Massacre Victims. At that moment, I also realized that near a large bodega that was about 70 meters away from where I was there were various people from the town, who the Zetas were shouting at and mistreating, and who I knew because they were from the [deleted] family. The name "Allende" is in honor of Ignacio Allende, a hero of Mexico's War of Independence.The town's folk hero is Arnulfo Gonzlez who was gunned down in the mid-1920s, and has a "corrido" sung by artists such as Vicente Fernndez and many others. But he did not say anything to me. 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. 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. However, I'm mortified at the . So they formed them into rows of people and later took them to the ranch of the [deleted] where they killed and burned them together with people from Allende. The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. The soldiers found doors torn off, the building sacked, spent shell casings, dead animals, burned buildings, and a pick-up truck riddled with bullet holes, but no people. My parents were born in Mexico and every summer we visited and it we had the times of our lives as kids and young adults. 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 town's mayor believes 30 to 40 Allende families were exterminated, and he has a list of 34 houses that were destroyed. During Mexico's unknown massacre, Los Zetas carried out a systematic extermination by killing and incinerating more than 400 people in Allende and the surrounding towns. Witnesses describe in graphic detail how Los Zetas undermined and criminalized the public security forces of Allende, and how the latter routinely participated in kidnappings, murders, and other crimes on behalf of the group. [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. An Army unit was sent to Rancho Garza to investigate. Schamus presents the trailer and key art for his new drama series Somos. And I remember what he said to me: Don't be an ass. In the U.S., the prosecutions of Reyes Arzate and others are likely to result in the collection of significant new evidence on the Allende case, including the testimony of Reyes himself, the statements of former Zetas, and key DEA records from the period in question. 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. In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common, the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand out. Subscribe. Prosecutors disagreed, arguing that Lozano collaborated with Los Zetas, was aware of the attacks before they began, and had failed in his obligation to protect the people of Allende. The next day,investigators requested, andlater received, a list of Allende police officials active in 2011 and began to interview them systematically. premiering June 30. Garcas friend, Everardo Elizondo, worked part-time at Luis Garzas ranch and also raised fighting cocks. "Nos rene la necesidad de enfrentar como pas y como Estado . They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. And he told me to get out of the house and to go to my moms house [W]hen I got to my moms house, my husband called again to tell me that things were getting really ugly; that they had broken into my house and stolen our truck.- Complaint of Sarah Angelita Lira, November 11, 2014. Meanwhile, Mexico has announced the arrest of police officers allegedly involved in the killings. 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. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. [10] How the U.S. Una nueva serie de Netflix intenta . Ginger Thompson, ProPublica 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. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . One of the cooks told investigators that his involvement in the Allende massacre began a few days earlier when he was awakened with dousing of cold water. Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. He told me: "The United States . [I]n fact, he sometimes came and went inside the cells to beat those who were locked up. [14] In many cases, the names of the people identified by firefighters Lpez Tamez and De Len Ramos are legible behind clumsily applied redactions. That report, sponsored by a government-backed victims' rights commission and undertaken by scholars at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico, says that even now Mexican authorities show "less . The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an extensive evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records that prosecutors in the state of Coahuila only began to compile almost three years after the fact. He always knew what was happening here.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 17:30. Reading Pulitzer Prize-winner Ginger Thompson's oral history of a little-known 2011 massacre in the Mexican border town of Allende, and of the role, the U.S. government played in triggering it, is an experience at once intimate and vast.Hearing the voices of survivors, whether they were perpetrators . There were not many of us. 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.

Crying A Week After Rhinoplasty, Barn Wedding Venues In Louisville, Ky, Articles A