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. Nearly all of those interviewed agreed that the surge in violence and the general pattern of police cooperation with the Zetas was evident for at least a year or two before the March 2011 massacre. And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" was published in 2017 by the investigative news agency ProPublica.. His wife recalled the ominous last moments she spent with her husband on March 18, 2011, the night that he and his friend, Hector Lara, disappeared. Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. 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. " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. One former police official who attended the meeting said that Trevio told them that things were going to get hot that there had been a meeting with Los Zetas and the mayor, and that things were going to get ugly., As a result of the meeting with the mayor and Los Zetas, Trevio ordered police personnel not to leave the offices for anything, even if there were reports. The officer said they were told that if we went out it was under our own risk, and that they would fucking get us.. Oct. 9, 2016. "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. 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. 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. He told her to cancel the birthday party they were planning for her the next week. However, I'm mortified at the . The 2011 massacre carried out by the Zetas drug cartel in Allende, Mexico was a shocking reminder of the brutality of the black market, which thrives under governmental drug . Or do you want the same thing to happen to you or to your families?-Declaration of Allende fire chief, December 17, 2014. Many thousands disappeared in Mexico's drug war. . And you could see that they were unloading large barrels, and the odor of diesel or gasoline was evident. Just a few people. With the help of these same police, we put them in the patrol vehicle. Because if you dont [keep quiet] theyre going to kidnap you too.. 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. She spoke by phone to Fernando Purn, the mayor of Piedras Negras who told her that her son was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He told her the most likely outcome was that Gerardo would be released because it was a mistake. Speaking again later that night, around 3:30 AM on March 19, she said the mayor told her that it hurt him very much, what we were going through, and he hung up. The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records compiled by Mexican prosecutors in the state of Coahuila.[3]. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. You know who they are., Still other witnesses said that they saw Lozano standing calmly outside his house on the night of March 20 talking on a mobile phone while the Zetas sacked a house across the street. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. 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. 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. 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. 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. Lpez said he knew all of the municipal police very well, owing to the fact that there was a lot of contact with them.[14], Upon seeing all of those police, I realized that they were keeping watch or guarding the place. When they did not return or respond to phone calls, their wives became concerned. And that if we didn't obey, they were going to fuck us and our families. 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. Yesterday I heard machine guns right outside my door on Independencia. 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. 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. 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. 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. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? That they will help us and will help the people. 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. [F]rom the road you could see smoke coming from inside the ranch. Audio series examines DEA culpability in 2011 Allende massacre. The next day,investigators requested, andlater received, a list of Allende police officials active in 2011 and began to interview them systematically. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Thompsons reporting and the U.S. investigations strongly suggest that the former SIU chief may have been part of a criminal conspiracy that sparked the Allende massacre. 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. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. 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. [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. The job netted Jimnez about eight thousand pesos ($700 USD) per month, plus expenses. Allende, Coahuila, municipio donde se perpetr una masacre, en 2011. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. 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. 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. [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . Arts & Culture. 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. Early in the morning on March 19, Arturo called his own mother, Elvira Espinoza, and told her that neither Liliana, who worked for her fathers ranch business, nor her parents were answering their phones. His mother had called around 9:00 PM to tell her son, Vctor Manuel Garza Prez, that her house was under assault. 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 . November 6, 2013, National Security Archive 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. In the worst cases, civilian authorities were little more than subcontractors of the Zetas criminal organization, involved in shakedowns, kidnappings, drug trafficking and numerous murders, not over a period of weeks or months, but for many years. He told me: "The United States . jschwartz@statesman.com. Published September 10, 2021. And as I am originally from here in Allende, and this is a small town, for this reason I know these people. 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. It is not clear why members of the the military unit thatexamined the ranch did not secure the property or, evidently, take any additional steps to comprehend what was happening in Allende. 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. Reading Pulitzer Prize-winner Ginger Thompson's oral history of a little-known 2011 massacre in the Mexican border town of Allende, and of the role, the U.S. government played in triggering it, is an experience at once intimate and vast.Hearing the voices of survivors, whether they were perpetrators . According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. Others had nothing whatsoever to do with the Garza family and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. Residents of the small town of Villa Union, 12 miles from Allende, said Tuesday . At the same time, President Lpez Obradors desire to weaken or abolish the institution charged with guaranteeing those rights, INAI, represents a looming threat to human rights transparency in Mexico. Oscar nominated screenwriter/producer James Schamus makes his television debut with 'Somos,' a six-part Netflix drama about a real-life cartel massacre in the Mexican town of Allende. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. 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. Remembering the Allende Massacre. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. [16] Exoneran a ex alcalde de Allende, Coahuila, ligado a masacres de 2011, El Financiero, Feb. 10, 2017. Prosecutors say they havepresumptively relatedthe Reyes and Garca cases. Some cooperated more than others. [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). Inside the gate, a small building was burning. A fire department volunteer said he also saw many familiar faces among the victims, the Zetas, and the police officials gathered there. 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. The George Washington University [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. 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. 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record with over 20,000 homicides so far. And out of fear that they would do something to me if I disobeyed orders, I had to kill a person, that being Everardo Elizondo, who was about 30 or 35 years old, to whom I gave a shot in the head. 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. Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. 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. And what I did, in that place, together with [Chucho] was carry containers filled with gasoline and diesel to the bodega, which was filled with hay. The perilous path Central American migrants take while traveling through Mexico to reach the U.S. border has been an area of . 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 . [11] A portion of the Prez Iruegas complaint was previously published by Zcalo, revealing some of the parts that were redacted in the version released by CNDH (shown here in brackets). 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. U.S. Prosecutions Bring Mexico Corruption into Focus When we arrived at the ranch, they went inside the houses and I began to hear many shots fired and people shouting, and they began to throw the bodies of dead people in the bed of the truck, and later they tellme Get down here, asshole, and tie up this fucking bitch I tied up a man who seemed to be a worker at the Garza ranch, but I did not know this person. 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. Over the course of six episodes, "Somos." gives a platform to the victims of the Allende massacre to tell their stories. And when we met with him, he told us that things were going to get hot. I would ask you the same thing, she replied. 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. MEXICO CITY The killers went to the town of Allende one weekend in March 2011 with orders to exact revenge. I could see that the owners of the ranch were there, since I could identify [Jos Luis Garza,] Mrs. [Alma Patricia,] their son [Julio Csar Garza, Rodolfo Garza, and] his daughter, whose name was [Nora Liliana Garza de la Torre.] To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . 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 . May 12, 2015, Documenting Mexicos Recurring Nightmare 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. 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. Prosecutors said at least a dozen specially trained police officials may also have been involved. 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. Suite 701, Gelman Library In the U.S., the prosecutions of Reyes Arzate and others are likely to result in the collection of significant new evidence on the Allende case, including the testimony of Reyes himself, the statements of former Zetas, and key DEA records from the period in question. Local media, fearing reprisals, did not report the violence until years later. There were not many of us. 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. [12]- Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. 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. In 2019, the state had a homicide rate of about 61 . September 26, 2019, FiftyYears After Tlatelolco, Censoring the Mexican Archives: Mexico's "Dirty War" Files Withdrawn from Public Access Horrifying Allende massacre still haunts Mexico. [17] The Zetas member is not identified in the text but from context appears to be El Canelo. Tracing the missing. 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. The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. Meanwhile, criminal violence continues to soar in Mexico, with the Cartel of the Northeast (CDN), successor to Los Zetas, implicated in some of the worst cases. We arrived and forced our way in firing shots, from there we took [Vctor Garza], his wife [Alma Patricia Prez], and their youngest son, I think that [his name was Julio Garza.] Villa Unin, just a 20-minute drive from Allende, has been the site of numerous acts of violence linked to the CDN in recent years. Forensic specialists from the Mexican Federal Police examine one of the primary crime scenes from the 2011 Allende massacre on January 28, 2014. 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 government should do more to find them. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . The acrid odor of diesel fuel hung in the air. 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. Many others disappeared and were presumably killed in the weeks and months that followed in the wake of the massacre. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. premiering June 30. Subscribe. 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. History. For the family members, nothing has changed. 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. 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. Germn Zaragoza Snchez, better known as El Canelo, was a top Zetas boss in Allende and managed a group hawks who monitored and reported on the movements of state and federal security forces. One former Allende police official interviewed during the investigation described how the payments were made. We told him, Yes. And I asked him why he, as the person in direct charge of the city, the top authority, had not asked for help from the military or the state or federal government, since I had explained that we did not have the weapons or the resources to take on these people? 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. 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. Witnesses describe in graphic detail how Los Zetas undermined and criminalized the public security forces of Allende, and how the latter routinely participated in kidnappings, murders, and other crimes on behalf of the group. It was around March 15, 2011, the then-director of the municipal police called all the elements to a meeting in the offices of the municipal police. 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. 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. Jos Alfredo Jimnez was one of the first of the Zetas to arrive at Luis Garzas ranch that night. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. 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.