The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . The two had gone to the ranch on March 18 to get medicine for a cockfight that evening. 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. Seven people are gunned down at a streetside taco stand. Known as El Pjaro (The Bird), Jimnez was hired by the Zetas in the summer of 2010 as a halcn (hawk) to monitor the movements of rival gangs, state and federal security forces, and anything else that might threaten Los Zetas. The town's mayor believes 30 to 40 Allende families were exterminated, and he has a list of 34 houses that were destroyed. 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. 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. 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. 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. But he did not say anything to me. He told me that we were not up for parties, she said. " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. When Garcas wife drove past the Garza ranch the next morning she spotted a group of hooded, armed men inside while Allende police stood watch outside the entrance. Alone on a remote mountain road after witnessing the slaughter of nine close relatives, the wounded children who had survived a cartel ambush in . Others had nothing whatsoever to do with the Garza family and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 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. As CrimeOnline previously reported, the victims were part of a faith group who lived in Sonora, an established faith-based city in Mexico, around 70 miles from Douglas, Arizona. premiering June 30. 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. 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. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. 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. Did United States Trigger a Drug Cartel Massacre in Mexico? American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although many of the pages have been redacted by CNDH for public release). 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. But he never came back. 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 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. 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. Allende massacre. The Massacre In Allende | VICE on HBO (Extra) - YouTube Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" was published in 2017 by the investigative news agency ProPublica.. When the Zetas became aware of our presence, and that we were there to put out the fire, they said to us: You guys get the fuck out of here! Cartel Assassin Involved in Allende Massacre Sentenced to Life in She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. What they saw, before fleeing for their lives, was the beginning of the grimly methodical process often used by the Zetas to destroy the bodies of their victimsto eliminate the primary evidence of the crime. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. His wife, Sarah Angelita Lira, said that Liliana had called to tell him that their uncles ranch was on fire, and that she was leaving the ranch, and that they were closing the gate., So my husband left. October 2, 2018, Transcripts of intercepted cell phones open new lines of investigation in Ayotzinapa case Mexican President Consoles Family of Massacre Victims. According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico ProPublica (AP) MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash . 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. June 19, 2017. 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]. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. Zcalo, a regional paper in Saltillo, Coahuila, also published portions of the testimony. in Allende, Coahuila state, Mexico, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019. Closer look at massacre in Mexico reveals glimpse of corruption Among other evidence is thestatementof a former Allende police official, Fernando Hernndez Reyes, who gave a vivid account of his involvement in the kidnappings. 'Somos' Review - The Hollywood Reporter The tenth anniversary of the Allende killings comes as allegations of narcotics-related corruption among top Mexican officials have brought U.S.-Mexico security ties to their lowest point in many years. 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. Victim associations report about 300 people dead or missing from the Allende massacre. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. Police acted as lookouts (halcones) for the group, collected extortion payments from local club owners on their behalf, and participated in the Zetas drug trafficking activities. 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. Perspective | How a U.S. drug enforcement operation got dozens of She told investigators what she learned from a series of telephone conversations with her husbands captor. 'Somos.': One of Mexico's Worst Massacres Told Through its Victims Report says Mexico state officials ignored massacre | AP News An important moment seems to have come in March 2015, when state investigatorssaw a familiar patternemerge in three seemingly unrelated cases. On the afternoon of March 20, aman reported the March 18 disappearance of his wifes parents and five other family members. 15 Killed in Mexican Car Wash Massacre | Fox News [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. 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 . 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. 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. 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. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . According to multiple local media reports, the massacre happened on Wednesday afternoon when an armed group opened fire at the city hall of San Miguel Totolapan, resulting in the . Many of the nine women and children killed on a remote stretch of highway in northern Mexico Monday were shot at point-blank range -- victims of a targeted assassination that Mexican authorities . 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. 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.. Isabel Allende - Books, Life & Career - Biography 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. There were not many of us. Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History 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. The slowly unfolding investigation of the Allende massacre finally gained some momentum with the establishment of a special task force in 2014. Herrera said he knew many of the victims as well. La masacre de Allende, Coahuila, forma parte de la historia ms siniestra de Mxico. In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. [8]But the initial three-year delay in starting the investigation has complicated the pursuit of justice for the massacre. 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. Los Zetas Cartel Used Network of Ovens to Hide Mass - Breitbart Oneformer member of the Allende policeinterviewed in July 2014 told investigators that from the moment that I joined the ranks of the municipal police I realized that all of the people I mentioned previously, including the mayor, the police director, police commander, and the shift commanders, were linked to the Zetas criminal organization., One of the first witnesses to talk about the police departments links to Los Zetas was anAllende municipal official in charge of road maintenance, who in January 2014 told investigators that everyone knows about [the March 2011 Allende massacre] but is too afraid to say anything.. 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. Mexico Mormon massacre: US victims were shot at point-blank range It is not a series of drug traffickers, but of their victims: of those who try to survive . Most of the victims were later shot and killed, after which the Zetas crudely cremated the bodies, dousing them in gasoline and diesel fuel and burning them overnight until nothing remained but ashes and tiny bone fragments. "Somos." de Netflix: as fue la brutal y olvidada masacre de Allende en 92110 United States [email protected] +1 619-260-2299. History. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. The government should do more to find them. [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. 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. . Arts & Culture. He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History [W]hen the Zetas realized that we were there, they said to us, Youd better get the hell out of here, motherfuckers! Justice in Mexico 5998 Alcal Park, San Diego, CA. 2011 San Fernando massacre - Wikipedia The acrid odor of diesel fuel hung in the air. 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. Mexican Federal Police collect ashes, bone fragments and other bits of evidence from the Garza Ranch on January 28, 2014 (Source: Document 40: Field Criminology Opinion Report, January 28, 2014). The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. 6/27/2017 (written by Lucy Clement La Rosa)- Over six years ago, a small ranching community near the Texas border of Mexico bore witness to the vengeful assault of Las Zetas, one of Mexico's historically violent drug trafficking organizations. 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. It is estimated that over 300 went missing or killed in March of 2011. This article was posted in Borderland Beat mainpage on March 26, 2011. 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. Despite the unimaginable death toll and visible trail of destruction, for several years the case was largely ignored by federal, state, and local authorities. Leave them. Remembering the Allende Massacre - JUSTICE IN MEXICO Criminals were shooting up the street and two police officers . 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. However, families of the victims in Allende touted the overdue government efforts as a publicity stunt. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . Forensic specialists from the Mexican Federal Police examine one of the primary crime scenes from the 2011 Allende massacre on January 28, 2014. Juan Ariel Hernndez Ramos, commander of the Allende police, who reported to the police director, is the most senior public official sentenced in the case. Other convictions include Germn Zaragoza Snchez (the Zetas members known as El Canelo) and Fernando Hernndez Reyes, an Allende police officer. Edited by Michael Evans. Residents of the small town of Villa Union, 12 miles from Allende, said Tuesday . THE DOCUMENTS. 'Somos.' Summary & Ending, Explained - How Allende Massacre Was
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