That they did not want to see us going out to extinguish the houses. Warning: violence in San Miguel de Allende. Her brother-in-law, who also worked for the Garzas, arrived later and told her that her husband had been kidnapped. Later we began to cook the corpses that we were left with, and to do this we looked for a space inside the same ranch near the corrals, and later a truck of Zetas brought some barrels and a pickaxe We made holes in the bottom and on the sides of the barrels, and they were like trash barrels made of sheet metal or iron, and after making the holes, I remember that El Chango and I took one of the bodies from the truck and put it in a barrel. Founded in 2002 as the enforcement arm of the notorious Gulf Cartel, the first members of Los Zetas were recruited from a Mexican special forces group known as GAFE (Grupo Aeromvil de Fuerzas Especiales), members of which were trainedat the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia. 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. First published on Wed 6 Nov 2019 16.31 EST. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. Forensic specialists from the Mexican Federal Police examine one of the primary crime scenes from the 2011 Allende massacre on January 28, 2014. The hooded figures spotted by Hctor Prez that night included the Zeta known as El Pjaro, who told authorities that he and a group of Zetas led by Jos Manuel Daz (Comandante 7) and Fernando Ros Bustos (Comandante Pala) had kidnapped Vctor, Alma, and their son Julio, and murdered them at the ranch later that night. 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. 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. June 19, 2017. Netflix drama series Somos. Both in charge of Los Zetas, Allende's is a much less known story. The destruction of the 2011 Allende massacre is still evident to this day. He said he recognized many of the Zetas gathered there.[13]. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. Over the course of six episodes, "Somos." gives a platform to the victims of the Allende massacre to tell their stories. He did not take my opinion into consideration, and no one else said anything. Several said the police director ordered that officers should not do anything or say anything about the carnage. The truth is I accepted them, one said of the payments, because I needed to take care of my family, and also because they told us that we had to enter the ring, because if we didnt, they were going to harm us, or kill us or someone from our family. He explained why, after16 years on the force, he finally quit the Allende police late in 2011. Herrera said he knew many of the victims as well. Members of the criminal group Los Zetas could be seen unloading barrels next to a storage shed near the back of the property. [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. 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. I would ask you the same thing, she replied. So the moment that we were leaving the place out of fear from the threats made by these people, and because the police were attending to them, the people of Los Zetas put the entire [deleted] family into the bodega or large barn I mentioned, along with various other people who I saw clearly but who I did not know. 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. 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. By Theodore Bunker | Friday, 06 August 2021 02:11 PM EDT. A declassified DEA report from 2015said that the Zetas in late 2015 made a conscious effort to rebrand as the Cartel del Noreste (Cartel of the Northeast). More information on CDN is available here. When known, names have been added in brackets. Others were simply picked up off the street. 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. He said that as many as ten of his family members disappeared that day, including Vctor, Alma, and their youngest son Julio Csar. Few had the courage to defy Los Zetas. Also the commander, [Hernndez Ramos], who never did anything since he also was working for the Zetas and received money, but I dont know how much And [an unnamed Los Zetas member] would come in like he was in his own house, without anyone saying a thing about it.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 17:30, Multiple witnesses said that Trevio called them to a meeting three days before the massacre began on March 18, 2011, telling them that he and Lozano had met with Los Zetas and had agreed to stand down municipal authorities for the criminal group. He told me: "The United States . Garcas friend, Everardo Elizondo, worked part-time at Luis Garzas ranch and also raised fighting cocks. 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. Suite 701, Gelman Library 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. 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. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. The situation was especially dire in Piedras Negras, where Los Zetas had turned the state prison into a center of operations. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History September 29, 2020, Five Years Later, the Search Continues Published September 10, 2021. 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 attack . The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. Volunteer Luis Herrera Estrada was one of the four Allende firefighters who responded to reports of a blaze at the Garza ranch, and his statement of November 23, 2014, three and a half years later, is the first detailed account in the file of what the firefighters saw at the ranch that night. The new Netflix series, "Somos.," (We Are), offers a respectful but powerful look at the Allende massacre, one of the most brutal episodes of Mexico's war on organized crime, which sets it apart from other narco-series. They are included here in brackets. What is clear is that the failure to do so sealed the fates of an untold number of victims who were murdered at the ranch later that night. The same year, the Zetas member known as El Cubano was arrested in the U.S. and later extradited to Mexico in connection to the case. 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. 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. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . 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. 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. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). [N]othing remained of them at all, in addition to which they burned and razed their houses. 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 . The job netted Jimnez about eight thousand pesos ($700 USD) per month, plus expenses. Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . There was a fire coming from a small building inside the ranch alongside armed men who did not seem like they were police, according to the former volunteers statement. Passing by the Garza property, she noticed a group of workers gathered there, waiting to be paid. [T]hey brought them there to the Los ngeles Cemetery near the Piedras Negras city seminary, and also more people. 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. Police commander Juan Ariel Hernndez Ramos (who served under police director Trevio) said that Lozano had called top city officials to a special meeting to discuss the ongoing violent attacks around the city. Other witnesses confirmed the testimony of the police commander. 8:01. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. 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]. 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.. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. The 2020 U.S. arrest of Mexicos former defense secretary, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, for alleged narcotics ties has led Mexicos president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, tofast-track a new lawimposing strict new restrictions on U.S. personnel in Mexico and that threatens to significantly curtail the exchange of intelligence and law enforcement information. '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 . He told me that inside the jail Los Zetas were burning all of these people that I mentioned as well as my spouse who they burned inside that place after killing him, and more people from other parts of the state. Access request to Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), Freedom of Information Act request to DEA. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. Bone fragments found among the burned out ruins of the Garza Ranch, January 28, 2014 (Source: Document 41: Forensic Anthropology Technical Report, April 11, 2014). 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. 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. 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. Victim associations report about 300 people dead or missing from the Allende massacre. 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. 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. This story was originally published by ProPublica. 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. From the highway, smoke could be seen coming from the interior of the ranch. See reference here. [1] Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. In April of 2014 . 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. 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. The next day,investigators requested, andlater received, a list of Allende police officials active in 2011 and began to interview them systematically. [4] The thinking behind the special exception measure is simple: Human rights crimes affect both the immediate victims and society as a whole, and in such cases there is a society-wide interest in full transparency to ensure that such grave abuses do not reoccur. 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. 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. September 26, 2019, FiftyYears After Tlatelolco, Censoring the Mexican Archives: Mexico's "Dirty War" Files Withdrawn from Public Access In 2017, a group led by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)submitted a communicationto the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) detailing crimes committed against the civilian population in Coahuila, including murder, illegal imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and sexual violence, not just from March 2011 but from a seven-year period from 2009-2016. 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record with over 20,000 homicides so far. 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. Two days after the Zetas caravan of death had gotten underway it had arrived at the residence of Juniors uncle, Vctor Manuel Garza Garza, and his wife Alma Patricia Prez. Only a handful the Allende massacre victims actually had ties to the Zetasrunning drugs across the border or, according to some witness accounts, laundering drug money. 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. And you could see that they were unloading large barrels, and the odor of diesel or gasoline was evident. Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. That is to say, to transfer them to the Los ngeles Cemetery of this city and later to the ranch of the [deleted] to finish them off. 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. 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. El Pjaro said it was left to him and El Chucho to set fire to the house, the bodega, and everything inside, including the many dead bodies. On the afternoon of March 20, aman reported the March 18 disappearance of his wifes parents and five other family members. 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. 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. Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. However, I'm mortified at the . 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. However, families of the victims in Allende touted the overdue government efforts as a publicity stunt. "How the U.S. He said his hands were tied, so he stepped aside . MEXICO CITY The killers went to the town of Allende one weekend in March 2011 with orders to exact revenge. 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.. The newly released files on Allende, including evidence gathered in the weeks and months immediately following the massacre, show just how inadequate these investigations have been. He just asked us if we knew about what was happening. Remembering the Allende Massacre. 0:04. It's between them. The collection of testimonies found in the files of Coahuila state prosecutors depict a town almost completely beholden to the criminal groupfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. [At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. Despite the unimaginable death toll and visible trail of destruction, for several years the case was largely ignored by federal, state, and local authorities. Document 1 August 25, 2007 Shutdown Slows but Doesn't Stop Central Americans Headed North U.S. Embassy in Mexico, cable, sensitive, 3 pp. 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. 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. [W]hen the Zetas realized that we were there, they said to us, Youd better get the hell out of here, motherfuckers! Meanwhile, Mexico has announced the arrest of police officers allegedly involved in the killings. Allende, Coahuila, municipio donde se perpetr una masacre, en 2011. He gets up into the truck and with his hand he says goodbye leaving his suitcase there at the house because he was supposedly going to come back. His mother had called around 9:00 PM to tell her son, Vctor Manuel Garza Prez, that her house was under assault. 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. 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. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. Edited by Michael Evans. ALLENDE, Coahuila - Only abandoned and destroyed farms and the self-imposed silence of the inhabitants of Allende remain after the massacre perpetrated in this city in . [T]here was a red truck with wooden enclosures that was parked near the bodega or large barn that was inside the ranch. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. El Pjaro said that a group of victims that had been tied up inside the ranch house were later taken out back to the bodega where they were killed with a shot to the head. 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]. 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. 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. In the latter group was Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, who had just returned home to Coahuila for a visit from his job in Texas. 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. Armando Castilla, the publisher of the newspaper Vanguardia de Coahuila, says his publication was the first to report the case, in December 2013. The George Washington University They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. After about a half an hour, my husband called my son on his cell phone but he did not answer his phone, which worried us since he always answered.- Complaint of Claudia Snchez, October 18, 2013, Snchez soon learned that there had been a number of disappearances around the city that night, and that one of Gerardos friends had also gone missing. [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. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. Mexico's defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, was in charge of the military garrison in Allende when the massacre took place but has deflected responsibility for failing to stop the killings. I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. 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. After what happened to my spouse in May 2010, approximately one year later, in June 2011, [his captor] started looking for me according to him because my ex-spouse put him in charge of telling [me] what had happened to him He told me many things related with acts of violence in the region and I knew from his own words that he was an assassin for the Zetas cartel, and as we built some trust, I asked him various things.- Complaint of wife of murdered Zeta, November 13, 2014, He told her how the Zetas had killed someones grandson, probably a reference to Mauricio Espinoza, whose grandmother, Elvira Espinoza, was one of the first to report disappearances in Allende. In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . They had brought people from Sabinas, among others an ex-federal highways official and other people from the municipalities of Zaragoza and Morelosthis was weeks after what happened in Allende.- Complaint of wife of murdered Zeta, November 13, 2014. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . 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. Investigators firstquestioned LozanoandTrevioabout the massacre in 2012. De Len also remembered the moment, as they were leaving, when he saw the Zetas lead the victims into the bodega. In March 2011 witnesses say the notorious Zetas cartel abducted at least 300 people in northern Mexico, but a local investigation still has a long way to go to identity all the perpetrators - and . 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. And each estaca is made up of four assassins, but there were trucks that brought more people in the trailers.
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