En 2011, cuando el cartel de Los Zetas dominaba el noreste de Mxico, ocurri una masacre en la localidad de Allende, Coahuila, de la que poco se conoci. I still love Mexico. Just a few people. She told investigators what she learned from a series of telephone conversations with her husbands captor. The U.S.filed additional charges against Reyesin January 2020. "How the U.S. And after five or six hours during which the corpses were cooked it was then around five or six oclock in the morning. 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.. 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. Relatives of victims wait in anguish for news after a shooting July 1 at a drug rehabilitation center . 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]. Outside the ranch entrance, the firefighters spotted officers and vehicles from the Allende police department. [4]Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) has sinceposted the declassified volumeson its website, but they are not easy to find without a direct link. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. The two had gone to the ranch on March 18 to get medicine for a cockfight that evening. Vasquez then ordered that the father be killed. Herrera said he knew many of the victims as well. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico," "Somos." tells the story of a 2011 mass killing in Allende, in the Mexican state of Coahuila . 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. 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 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. 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. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. 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. Allende massacre. Guanajuato: Tourist Mecca Turned to Killing Field If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. 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. When known, names have been added in brackets. It is not a series of drug traffickers, but of their victims: of those who try to survive . 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. 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. [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. About five estacas[9]participated, and with [deleted] and [deleted] ten more joined. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. And each estaca is made up of four assassins, but there were trucks that brought more people in the trailers. And after that I left.- Complaint of Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, May 25, 2011. A longtime resident of Allende, Herrera knew or was familiar with many of the people he saw at the ranch, including the Zetas, their police accomplices, and many of the victims. Report says Mexico state officials ignored massacre | AP News 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. An Army unit was sent to Rancho Garza to investigate. On the afternoon of March 20, aman reported the March 18 disappearance of his wifes parents and five other family members. [11], [A]round nine oclock at night, I found myself at the circus that had set up in town, when suddenly a person by the name of [deleted] came up to me and told me that in the house of [my sister] they were hearing shots. They watched as gang members led their victims into a larger shed near the back. [W]hen the Zetas realized that we were there, they said to us, Youd better get the hell out of here, motherfuckers! [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. Edited by Michael Evans. Garcas friend, Everardo Elizondo, worked part-time at Luis Garzas ranch and also raised fighting cocks. 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. [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. 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. Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. 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. This same Allende city officer tried once more the following day, advising the mayor to tell someone about what was happening; that he talk to the governor. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. 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. Descendants of 1918 Porvenir Massacre Fight For Recognition - Time [T]he director, who almost never left his office, knew all about this. Cartel Assassin Involved in Allende Massacre Sentenced to Life in Eastern District of Texas | High-Ranking Member of Los Zetas Cartel And when we met with him, he told us that things were going to get hot. 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. And he was waiting for his brother-in-law [Later,] he told me that they spent the entire night looking for his family; that he had entered the ranch from the back through an opening, and that he realized that he was alone in the ranch house, and that he was there with the expectation that they were holding his sister and his niece and nephews all with the last name Espinoza Garza, who on the day of the acts were seven months, three years, and six years of age.- Complaint of Sarah Angelita Lira, November 11, 2014. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" was published in 2017 by the investigative news agency ProPublica.. And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . According to Thompsons reporting, [t]he wave of killings was unleashed after DEA agents shared the PIN codes with a specially vetted Mexican Federal Police (MFP) group known as the Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU), which had a record of leaking information to violent and powerful drug traffickers., That report was followed by the2018 convictionin U.S. federal court of the longtime head of the SIU, Ivn Reyes Arzate, who prosecutors say conspired with some of the very drug cartels he was to pursue as director of the specially trained, U.S.-funded intelligence unit. 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 . 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. Remembering the Allende Massacre - JUSTICE IN MEXICO 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. The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. He went on to say that now that Mexico has reformed its National Security Law, authorities from the U.S. could find themselves connected to another massacre similar to the incident in Allende. The Allende Massacre: How A DEA Investigation Triggered The Destruction 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. Jimnez told authorities that local Zetas leaders sent him to the ranch as part of an all-out assault on people and properties associated with the Garza family. Published September 10, 2021. With thousands of abductions in Mexico, families keep searching for the Suite 701, Gelman Library 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. 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. 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 . Audio series examines DEA culpability in 2011 Allende massacre. 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. Chilling New Report Cites Greater Death Toll in Allende Massacre 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. I only saw that they had them bent over with their hands behind their backs, and they put them in the back of the truck. The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History Others were simply picked up off the street. Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. A study from the Human Rights Clinic of the University of Texas Law School examined the trial transcripts of Zetas members prosecuted for drug trafficking, money laundering, and homicide in U.S. federal courts. Mexican cartel war transforms Guanajuato into a deadly place - Los 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 . It was approximately 7:00 or 7:20 in the evening, which is the hour of the shift change. [T]hey brought them there to the Los ngeles Cemetery near the Piedras Negras city seminary, and also more people. 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. His mother had called around 9:00 PM to tell her son, Vctor Manuel Garza Prez, that her house was under assault. Bri Rooke. Others had nothing whatsoever to do with the Garza family and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 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 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. [5]More recently, Lpez Obradorsignaled his intentionto eliminate the autonomous state organ charged with guaranteeing access to human rights documents like these, the National Institute of Access to Public Information and Personal Data (INAI). In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . 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. 'Somos.' on Netflix gives Mexican massacre a Hollywood twist - Los Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. Alone on a remote mountain road after witnessing the slaughter of nine close relatives, the wounded children who had survived a cartel ambush in . December 9, 2020, Six Years On, Ayotzinapa Investigations Advance In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . [F]rom the road you could see smoke coming from inside the ranch. 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 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. Inside the gate, a small building was burning. Netflix series inspired by story of 2011 massacre in Allende, Coahuila [N]othing remained of them at all, in addition to which they burned and razed their 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. And I did not know exactly what happened with them.- Declaration of Allende firefighter Jess Gerardo De Len Ramos, December 17, 2014, 14:50, The former fire department volunteer described a similar scene as the victims, including several elderly captives, were led to slaughter. The job netted Jimnez about eight thousand pesos ($700 USD) per month, plus expenses. 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. MEXICO CITY The killers went to the town of Allende one weekend in March 2011 with orders to exact revenge. How the DEA Triggered the Massacre of an Entire Mexican Town US Intelligence Helped Cause 2011 Massacre in Mexico The missing from the Allende massacre are among the 13,000 the . American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. 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. And from previously I knew that all of the Allende municipal police were linked to or worked for the Zetas.-Revised declaration of Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, December 17, 2014, Firefighter Jess Gerado De Len Ramos, too, spotted various units of the municipal police at the entrance to the ranch, including police director, Roberto Guadalupe Trevio Martnez, and shift commanders Maria Guadalupe Avalos Orozco and Rogelio Javier Flores Cruz, who he and others described as key links between the police and the Zetas. . Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. 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. 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. jschwartz@statesman.com. He said that he and Rodolfo Jr., his brother-in-law, were going out to look for them. 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 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. Remembering the Allende Massacre. How the U.s. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. That we would turn a blind eye. How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico - Magazine 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. Among the first to be rounded up were people connected to El Wichins uncle, Rodolfo Garza, who owned a ranch directly adjacent to that of his brother Luis. Source: ProPublica. Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. And the mayor commented on what was happening in the city, but never said if he was going to ask for help or if he had advised anyone of what was happening. 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. Washington, D.C., 20037, Phone: 202/994-7000 But there was not any kind of response from the police or any other authority.. [18]Others have called on Mexico to prosecute top Coahuila state officials, including former governors, for allowing criminal violence to flourish. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. How a Mexican Cartel Demolished a Town, Incinerated Hundreds of Victims 2130 H Street, NW 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. Gunmen Storm Wake in Mexico, Killing at Least Nine But he did not say anything to me. Closer look at massacre in Mexico reveals glimpse of corruption Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. May 12, 2015, Documenting Mexicos Recurring Nightmare Somos ("We are" or "We Exist" in English) is a Spanish Television Mini-Series based on the ProPublica article " How the U.S. triggered a massacre in Mexico. 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. Remembering the Allende Massacre - BlogTest 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. 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. 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. I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. 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. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. 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 . 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. 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. Isabel Allende was born on August 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, to Toms and Francisca Allende. Zetas. And this began to occur more or less in the years 2010 and 2011, which was about when Los Zetas got started in the region.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 15:20. 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]. Most importantly, he told her that many of the Allende massacre victims were first brought to a cemetery in Piedras Negras before being taken later to the Garza ranch. December 9, 2020, Advirti EU riesgo ante mandos mexicanos corruptos Over the course of six episodes, "Somos." gives a platform to the victims of the Allende massacre to tell their stories. . 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. (AP) MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash . The majority of these cases happened in Allende, so that time referred to as the Allende Massacre.

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