allende mexico massacre victims

On the evening of March 20, 2011, Yuliana Lpez Ibarra heard the sounds of gunfire and the desperate cries of her mother-in-law coming through the tiny speaker on her husbands cell phone. 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. 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. In 2011, Drug Enforcement Agency officials informed Mexican . -Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014. The files depict a town almost completely beholden to LosZetasfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. 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.. And as I am originally from here in Allende, and this is a small town, for this reason I know these people. Prosecutors say they havepresumptively relatedthe Reyes and Garca cases. Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. She toldProPublicathat, after separating the children from their parents, the kidnappers held them for several days before leaving the two older kids at a park. Las Cruces bowling alley massacre still unsolved after 30 years 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 Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. 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. [8] The CNDH report does not name any of the victims, perpetrators or other witnesses it cites. Report says Mexico state officials ignored massacre | AP News 2130 H Street, NW Warning: violence in San Miguel de Allende : r/digitalnomad - reddit The slowly unfolding investigation of the Allende massacre finally gained some momentum with the establishment of a special task force in 2014. How the U.s. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. Rodolfo Snchez Robles, who worked as a chauffeur and mechanic for the Garza family, seemed to know something was wrong on the day he disappeared. PICTURED: Victims of Mexico massacre that left 3 moms and 6 children 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. 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. Mexican Federal Police document bits of teeth recovered at the Garza Ranch, January 28, 2014(Source:Document 41: Forensic Anthropology Technical Report, April 11, 2014). The town's mayor believes 30 to 40 Allende families were exterminated, and he has a list of 34 houses that were destroyed. Many others disappeared and were presumably killed in the weeks and months that followed in the wake of the massacre. This was the brutal and forgotten Allende massacre in Mexico portrayed Inside the gate, a small building was burning. 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. In 2019, the state had a homicide rate of about 61 . 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]. 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. 'Somos.', the fictionalized retelling of the massacre that took place in the town of Allende, is now streaming on Netflix (Netflix) 'Somos.', which began streaming on Netflix on June 30, may involve a fictionalized perspective of the victims of the shocking massacre that took place in the town of . [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. For this reason, it can be inferred and there exists reasonable certainty that the disappeared people given the time and the place where they disappeared, have been kidnapped by people linked to organized crime, specifically by [deleted] and using the same operational methods. Allende, Coahuila - Wikipedia That they will help us and will help the people. 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. Mexico Mormon massacre: US victims were shot at point-blank range Justice in Mexico 5998 Alcal Park, San Diego, CA. She told investigators what she learned from a series of telephone conversations with her husbands captor. She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. It was the case that among them I recognized several, since I knew them, because we were from the same municipality of Allende, Coahuila, where I live.- Declaration of Zetas member Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. Elvira Espinoza told investigators about the day, about a week later, when she found two of her three missing grandchildren at an orphanage in Piedras Negras. 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. Mexican President Consoles Family of Massacre Victims. Is Netflix's 'Somos.' a true story? Horrifying Allende massacre still State investigative police in Coahuila said her testimony pointed to the method of operations of organized crime at that time in relation to the kidnappings in the northern region of the state of Coahuila and was one of the first clear signals that the Allende massacre was connected to many other cases around the region. Zcalo, a regional paper in Saltillo, Coahuila, also published portions of the testimony. 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. It's between them. The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. Chilling New Report by FXB's Sergio Aguayo Cites Greater Death Toll in [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's role in setting off a massacre in northern Mexico in 2011, leaving dozens of people dead or missing. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. He said he recognized many of the Zetas gathered there.[13]. . 15 Killed in Mexican Car Wash Massacre | Fox News La masacre de Allende, Coahuila, forma parte de la historia ms siniestra de Mxico. [T]he director, who almost never left his office, knew all about this. Witness statements and other records from the Allende case file published here today corroborate Osornos account of the enduring tragedy and illustrate the extent to which the group continued to rely on compliant police to execute some of its most sensitive operations. Large swaths of northeastern Mexico have been under the de facto control of drug cartels for more than a decade despite the promises of successive governments to rein in the criminal groups and root out the corrupt officials who have made it all possible. The Seminar on Violence of the Colegio de Mxico had access to many of these files in preparing its groundbreaking reports on Allende and a second report on how the Zetas gained control of authority structures in Coahuila, including the state prison in Piedras Negras. 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 . 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.] [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. 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. Bri Rooke. 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. MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexican drug gang bosses furious at suspected turncoats sent commandos aided by local police to seize dozens perhaps hundreds of people, murder them and dispose of their bodies in a town near the Texas border, yet state and federal officials ignored the massacre for years, according to a government-backed report released Sunday. Closer look at massacre in Mexico reveals glimpse of corruption After three days of abuse, on the night of March 20, the Zetas took him to the Garza ranch and put him to work managing the incoming truckloads of corpses along with a few living hostages. They picked me up, and, for having fallen asleep, they gave me ten blows on my buttocks with a board, and they gave me shocks [sapones] to the head [T]hey tied up my feet and hands with tape. En el rancho Los Tres Hermanos rociaron los cuerpos con gasolina y los metieron de a uno en toneles de metal para prenderles fuego: "Despus de cinco o seis horas se cocinaron los cuerpos . The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . In March 2011, The Zetas They carried out a massacre in the municipality of Allende, Coahuila, which did not receive the attention of the media at the time, until many years later. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico, by Ginger Thompson, ProPublica, June 12, 2017. Among other evidence is thestatementof a former Allende police official, Fernando Hernndez Reyes, who gave a vivid account of his involvement in the kidnappings. However, families of the victims in Allende touted the overdue government efforts as a publicity stunt. He just asked us if we knew about what was happening. [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. FOR almost three years residents of Allende, close to the Mexican border with . Lpez said he knew all of the municipal police very well, owing to the fact that there was a lot of contact with them.[14], Upon seeing all of those police, I realized that they were keeping watch or guarding the place. [A]nd how the Zetas were shouting at them and hitting and mistreating them, the then-chief of the department told investigators in his 2014 statement to state prosecutors. 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. Criminals were shooting up the street and two police officers . In the worst cases, civilian authorities were little more than subcontractors of the Zetas criminal organization, involved in shakedowns, kidnappings, drug trafficking and numerous murders, not over a period of weeks or months, but for many years. [F]rom the road you could see smoke coming from inside the ranch. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. During the two years she spent investigating the role of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the 2011 massacre in Allende, Mexico, she worked to understand and portray that reality of . Many needed the money. [His mother] told him that they were shooting up the house I could hear the shots and that she was shouting very desperately. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). 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. Nine people, including three mothers and six children, lost their lives Monday when they were shot execution-style while traveling to a wedding in Mexico. Among the evidence 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. That is to say, the [Garza] ranch. [T]hey brought them there to the Los ngeles Cemetery near the Piedras Negras city seminary, and also more people. Please do not fill in this field. Tagged: Allende best of vice news 2014 Border CARTELS Coahuila crime & drugs Diego Enrique Osorno Drugs garza massacre mexico moreira the five springs villanueva zetas VICE News Get the latest . Another told investigators that the local Los Zetas chief acted like he was in his own house during frequent visits to the Allende police station. 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 . For reference to U.S. training and other background, see our previous Electronic Briefing Book, especially Document 1 and Document 2. 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. Just a few people. Perspective | How a U.S. drug enforcement operation got dozens of [W]e all went in shooting and tied up all the people that were found inside the ranch. As ocurri la brutal y olvidada masacre de Allende - BBC News Mundo Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . Passing by the Garza property, she noticed a group of workers gathered there, waiting to be paid. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Special thanks to former National Security Archiveintern Emily Taylor for her assistance with this collection. He said that as many as ten of his family members disappeared that day, including Vctor, Alma, and their youngest son Julio Csar. 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. September 27, 2019 1:06 PM EDT. People from the town stole the furniture, vehicles, and machinery [from the houses] and sold it for scrap metal.- Declaration of Germn Zaragoza Snchez (El Canelo), April 8, 2014, 10:00am. In an act of revenge cartel members in 2011 razed and burned houses and disappeared people just by bearing the last name of the alleged traitor. 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? When he arrived, he told me and the other workers of the ranch to leave; that there had been a ruckus there; that armed, masked people told him to get inside; and that we should not get involved and should leave the ranch. [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. 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record with over 20,000 homicides so far. 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 DOCUMENTS. According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. . Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History According to testimony, the police would also arrest and detain people wanted by the Zetas, keeping them in the city jail until the Zetas arrived to take them away. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History Mexican cartel war transforms Guanajuato into a deadly place - Los For the family members, nothing has changed. By Theodore Bunker | Friday, 06 August 2021 02:11 PM EDT. Many thousands disappeared in Mexico's drug war. " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. Zetas - InSight Crime 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. Some cooperated more than others. Herrera said he knew many of the victims as well. Washington, D.C., 20037, Phone: 202/994-7000 Other witnesses said that the citys top official ignored urgent pleas that he request assistance from state or federal law enforcement to help quell the violence. 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 . How US intelligence has helped cartels kill thousands in Mexico Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. 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. [12]- Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. How one reporter uncovered the U.S. role in a massacre in Mexico [13] Bracketed items identified in portions of the Herrera Estrada declaration published by Zcalo. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. [3] 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. 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. Victim associations report about 300 people dead or missing from the Allende massacre. 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. That they did not want to see us going out to extinguish the houses. 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. Four years later, and ten years since the Allende massacre, the families of those victimized by the Zetas and other criminal groups in Coahuilaare still waitingto learn whether the ICC will take up the case. Another explained how the money was divided up among members of the Allende police. 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. 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. Claudia Snchez last saw her son, Gerardo Heath, around 9:30 PM on March 18 when he left their home in Piedras Negras to visit a friend who lived down the street. When the Zetas arrived in Allende a decade ago, they infiltrated the very . 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. [6]In January, the bodies of 19 Central American migrants werefound in Tamaulipas, a neighboring Mexican border state and the site of hundreds of still largely unexplained migrant murders over the past eleven years. In the latter group was Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, who had just returned home to Coahuila for a visit from his job in Texas. History. Fax: 202/994-7005Contact by email. Gunmen Storm Wake in Mexico, Killing at Least Nine In a sworn statement, El Pjaro said the Zetas coordinated the kidnappings with high-ranking officials of the Allende municipal police department, who were present during the abductions and who carried the victims from the house to the ranch in a police patrol vehicle. 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. Yesterday I heard machine guns right outside my door on Independencia. With the help of these same police, we put them in the patrol vehicle.

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