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. Whereas, according to a 2016 interview of Coahuila attorney general Homero Ramos Gloria, the Mexican government has identified only 28 human remains and 54 . 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. And outside the house there were four people with long arms who were dressed in black and had on bulletproof vests. Both in charge of Los Zetas, Allende's is a much less known story. The Allende massacre - in which, according to the families of the victims, there were more than 300 people dead or missing - remained hidden for almost two years. 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 . The files also include a statement from the caretaker of a Los Zetas safe house where the younger Sergio was held for several days after his abduction in August 2012 and before being killed and cremated by Los Zetas. follows the lives of an ensemble group of fictional characters, all inspired by real-life . Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . It was approximately 7:00 or 7:20 in the evening, which is the hour of the shift change. El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . LAS CRUCES - On Feb. 10, 1990, two men walked into a Las Cruces bowling alley and shot seven people execution style including four children robbed the bowling alley's safe and set . [18]On homicide rate, see this report from the University of San Diegos Justice in Mexico program; On impunity, see, Mexicos bloody drug war is killing more people than ever, Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2017. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. 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. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico, by Ginger Thompson, ProPublica, June 12, 2017. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. 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 . 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. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Passing by the Garza property, she noticed a group of workers gathered there, waiting to be paid. 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 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. The horrifying persistence of brazen cartel attacks like these is a reminder of how little has changed in Mexico, especially in the border states of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Len. He recognized some of them: El Pala, El Cubano, El Pjaroall of them local men who worked for the Zetas. Beginning as a group of deserters from an elite unit of the armed forces at the service of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas would go on to become one of the most powerful and feared cartels in Mexico before infighting and the loss of leaders started the organization's decline. 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. A fire department volunteer said he also saw many familiar faces among the victims, the Zetas, and the police officials gathered there. Peering through the gates, the firefighters saw members of the Los Zetas criminal group berating and beating members of the Garza family, who owned the ranch, along with several of their employees. Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. InMilenio, Diego Osorno writes aboutThe Sad Case of the Two Sergio Garzas,Juniors uncle and cousin, who were murdered, along with other family members, in March and August 2012part of a continuing effort by Los Zetas to eliminate loose ends from within the Garza family. 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. Isabel Allende was born on August 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, to Toms and Francisca Allende. In a country where more than 90% of crimes go unsolved, searching. 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. 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.] 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 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. Few had the courage to defy Los Zetas. And he said this openly, because almost all the police received money from those people And that according to that meeting, they had told him that if we saw strange things related to Los Zetas, that we would not do anything or say anything. [12]- Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. 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). One former Allende police official interviewed during the investigation described how the payments were made. Despite the brutality of the case, major U.S. TV and print outlets have largely ignored the kidnapping and murder of hundreds of people from Allende, Coahuila. [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. The situation was especially dire in Piedras Negras, where Los Zetas had turned the state prison into a center of operations. 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. Prosecutors say that Reyes took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the cartels during his 13-year career at the SIU, including large payments from the Sinaloa and Beltran-Leyva cartels, among others. Mexico has again witnessed a brutal incident of gun violence, where a gunman opened fire and killed at least 18 people at San Miguel Totolapan City Hall on Wednesday. [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. In towns like Allende, Los Zetas relied mainly on local recruits and corrupt officials to protect their narcotics operations, shake down local businesses, and keep watch for rival gangs and other threats. That is to say, the [Garza] ranch. And each estaca is made up of four assassins, but there were trucks that brought more people in the trailers. 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. The attack . See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. jschwartz@statesman.com. 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. [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. "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. Oct. 9, 2016. Tracing the missing. He said that this was an injustice, since he was just a little boy. Most of them, he said, were killed and cremated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. Washington, D.C., 20037, Phone: 202/994-7000 Schamus presents the trailer and key art for his new drama series Somos. 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. [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. But he did not say anything to me. To date, prosecutors have managed only a handful ofconvictions in a case that involves dozens of crime scenes, hundreds of victims, and the documented participation of numerous Zetas and public officials. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. 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. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. 35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION, FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports, Document 40: Field Criminology Opinion Report, January 28, 2014, Document 41: Forensic Anthropology Technical Report, April 11, 2014, Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014, -Declaration of Allende fire chief, December 17, 2014, 2017 investigation by Ginger Thompson of ProPublica, - Declaration of Zetas member Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014, - Declaration of Germn Zaragoza Snchez (El Canelo), April 8, 2014, 10:00am, - Complaint of Sarah Angelita Lira, November 11, 2014, - Complaint of wife of victim Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, May 23, 2014, - Declaration of wife of heavy machinery mechanic for Rodolfo Garza, July 23, 2014, - Complaint of wife of victim Rodolfo Snchez Robles, November 10, 2014, - Complaint of Claudia Snchez, October 18, 2013, - Complaint of Elvira Espinoza, November 4, 2011, -Complaint of Yuliana Lpez Ibarra, October 14, 2014, - Complaint of Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, May 25, 2011, - Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014, -Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter Luis Gerardo Herrera Estrada, November 23, 2014, -Revised declaration of Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, December 17, 2014, - Declaration of Allende firefighter Jess Gerardo De Len Ramos, December 17, 2014, 14:50, - Declaration of former Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014, 11:37, - Declaration of Zetas member, September 19, 2014, - Declaration of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014, - Declaration of Germn Zaragoza Snchez (El Canelo), April 8, 2014, 10:00, Allende municipal official in charge of road maintenance, - Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 17:30, - Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 15:20, -Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014, -Declaration of former Allende police transit officer, July 31, 2014, -Declaration of former Allende police shift commander, September 18, 2016, -Declaration of Juan Ariel Hernndez Ramos, Allende police commander, August 18, 2016, municipal official present at the March 22 meeting, - Declaration of Zetas safe house guard, part 2, March 2, 2016, - Complaint of wife of murdered Zeta, November 13, 2014, - Memorandum on links between various cases, March 5, 2015, Seminar on Violence of the Colegio de Mxico, gained control of authority structures in Coahuila, How the U.S. 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. In April of 2014 . Because if you dont [keep quiet] theyre going to kidnap you too.. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . Family members lost contact with Rodolfo and his daughter, Liliana Garza de la Torre, on the night of March 18. Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. [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. However, families of the victims in Allende touted the overdue government efforts as a publicity stunt. Seven people are gunned down at a streetside taco stand. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. With the help of these same police, we put them in the patrol vehicle. [At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. In Coahuila we were hearing the word being passed from municipality to municipality, about a large scale Zeta massacre in several towns of "The Five Springs", (Los Cinco Manantiales) including Allende. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. De Len also remembered the moment, as they were leaving, when he saw the Zetas lead the victims into the bodega. 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. 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 . [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. Among others, I remember that there was Jos [deleted,] the owner of the ranch, [deleted,] his wife, [deleted,] [Vctor Manuel] [deleted,] an employee of the [Garzas] by the name of [deleted,] a man by the name of Hctor [deleted,] among other people from the family of the [deleted] and people from the town whose names I dont remember, but who I know on sight, other people that I had not seen before, and people of advanced age, who they were putting inside the large bodega.- Declaration of former Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014, 11:37. In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. Audio series examines DEA culpability in 2011 Allende massacre. 8 min de lectura. [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. [7]A2005 FBI evaluationfound that the original Zetas had a military-style organizational structure that included counterintelligence, intelligence and tactical enforcement units. By 2010, Los Zetas had broken with the Gulf Cartel and independently controlled key narcotics smuggling corridors and strategically located cities in northeastern Mexico near the U.S. border. That they did not want to see us going out to extinguish the houses. 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. 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. Access request to Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), Freedom of Information Act request to DEA. And when we met with him, he told us that things were going to get hot. His mother had called around 9:00 PM to tell her son, Vctor Manuel Garza Prez, that her house was under assault. The call lasted for about a minute.-Complaint of Yuliana Lpez Ibarra, October 14, 2014, Shortly after the troubling March 20 phone call with his mother, Vctor Garza and Yuliana Lpez managed to escape to nearby Sabinas, but Vctor insisted on going for his parents, according to Yulianas statement. [Rodolfo] came home all covered in grease, ate, and later, as we sat outside smoking a cigarette, he told me, Things are getting to be a real pain in the ass, but he didnt tell me anything else, and we were there for about ten minutes. 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. June 19, 2017. 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 . 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. A fire department volunteer described the scene as they approached. 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. 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 missing from the Allende massacre are among the 13,000 the . January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History 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.. Soon, Coahuila state authorities discovered links to other violence in the regionin Piedras Negras, on the border, and across the Cinco Manantiales (Five Springs), a group of neighboring towns in northern Coahuila that includes Allende, Morelos, Nava, Zaragoza and Villa Unin, site of numerous cartel attacks in recent years. 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. And after that I left.- Complaint of Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, May 25, 2011. There were other people in civilian clothes who carried long arms, and these people were Los Zetas, since I realized that there at the [Garza] ranch were [El Pala,] whose name is [Fernando Ros Bustos]; [El Canelo,] whose name is [Germn Zaragoza Snchez]; [El Cubano], whose name is [Juan Rafael Arredondo Oviedo]; [El Pjaro], whose name is [Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar]; [El Flacaman,] whose name is [Gabriel Zaragoza Snchez,] among other people, some of whom I did not know, but they seemed to be from the south since they wore sandals and carried machetes. 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. "How the U.S. 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. Subscribe. I left the job because, the truth is, I did not like what was happening in the town of Allende, since things were getting ugly, in addition to which the entire directorate of the municipal police were mixed up with people from Los Zetas. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. 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. Armando Castilla, the publisher of the newspaper Vanguardia de Coahuila, says his publication was the first to report the case, in December 2013. 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. [18]Others have called on Mexico to prosecute top Coahuila state officials, including former governors, for allowing criminal violence to flourish. They found that the Zetas committed numerous human rights abuses in Coahuila with impunity and that public institutions and officials played a role, by actions or omissions in the abuses (p.24). Allende, Coahuila, municipio donde se perpetr una masacre, en 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. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. In a prior incident, testimony revealed that Vasquez participated in the massacre of numerous people in Piedras Negras and Allende, Coahuila, Mexico, at the hands of Los Zetas members in March of 2011. The George Washington University 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. Some cooperated more than others. Zetas. The human rights exception applies even to records from an ongoing criminal investigation, the kinds of files normally only accessible through high-profile leaks, such as the Panama Papers, or in piecemeal fashion and after lengthy delays through access to information laws.
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