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Jos Alfredo Jimnez was one of the first of the Zetas to arrive at Luis Garzas ranch that night. 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. A new detention order for Lozano was issued in March 2018, after the publication of the CNDH report, but little is known about how the case has progressed, and it is unclear whether prosecutors have ever filed charges against police director Trevio, who was seen outside the Garza Ranch and who witnesses say knew about the attacks ahead of time.[16]. And also El [Chucho] killed a person, but I did not see who. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Special thanks to former National Security Archiveintern Emily Taylor for her assistance with this collection. 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 rampage that punctuateda larger wave of violencein which theLos Zetas criminal groupkidnapped, murdered, and later burned the bodies of as many as 300 victims, incinerating the remains into piles of ashes, bits of teeth, and tiny bone fragments. 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. 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.] Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. For reference to U.S. training and other background, see our previous Electronic Briefing Book, especially Document 1 and Document 2. 2130 H Street, NW 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 . Lilianas husband, Arturo, had also been unable to reach his wife or her parents. So the moment that we were leaving the place out of fear from the threats made by these people, and because the police were attending to them, the people of Los Zetas put the entire [deleted] family into the bodega or large barn I mentioned, along with various other people who I saw clearly but who I did not know. Another explained that he stopped cooperating with the Zetas after they kidnapped his father. 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. En el rancho Los Tres Hermanos rociaron los cuerpos con gasolina y los metieron de a uno en toneles de metal para prenderles fuego: "Despus de cinco o seis horas se cocinaron los cuerpos . In March 2011, gunmen from one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in the world, the Zetas cartel, swept through Allende, a quiet ranching town not far from the Texas border. But as the investigation picked up steam in 2014, dozens of people, including local firefighters, law enforcement officers, civilian eyewitnesses, and municipal officials, came forward to describe a city government almost completely immersed in the criminal structure of Los Zetas, including the mayor and top police officials. I still love Mexico. [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. 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. May 29, 2021. 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. 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. Many needed the money. " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. Victim associations report about 300 people dead or missing from the Allende massacre. 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. 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. But he never came back. . 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. One of the homes destroyed in Allende in 2011. shares. 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. The attack . 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. 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. 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. [8]But the initial three-year delay in starting the investigation has complicated the pursuit of justice for the massacre. It is not a series of drug traffickers, but of their victims: of those who try to survive . 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 2020 U.S. arrest of Mexicos former defense secretary, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, for alleged narcotics ties has led Mexicos president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, tofast-track a new lawimposing strict new restrictions on U.S. personnel in Mexico and that threatens to significantly curtail the exchange of intelligence and law enforcement information. For the family members, nothing has changed. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. 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. Garcas friend, Everardo Elizondo, worked part-time at Luis Garzas ranch and also raised fighting cocks. 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. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History 'Somos.', the fictionalized retelling of the massacre that took place in the town of Allende, is now streaming on Netflix (Netflix) 'Somos.', which began streaming on Netflix on June 30, may involve a fictionalized perspective of the victims of the shocking massacre that took place in the town of . 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. To date, only a handful of Zetas and corrupt police officials have been convicted in a case that involves dozens of crime scenes, hundreds of victims, and the documented participation of numerous Zetas and public officials. 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. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). The government should do more to find them. Among the evidence posted today are the first complaints filed by the loved ones of those who went missing, the sworn declarations of Zetas members, Allende police and other city officials, the statements of firefighters and others who witnessed the violence, along with hundreds of pages of forensic reports, crime scene photos and related material. His mother had called around 9:00 PM to tell her son, Vctor Manuel Garza Prez, that her house was under assault. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" was published in 2017 by the investigative news agency ProPublica.. Claudia Snchez last saw her son, Gerardo Heath, around 9:30 PM on March 18 when he left their home in Piedras Negras to visit a friend who lived down the street. Mexican President Consoles Family of Massacre Victims. That is to say, the [Garza] ranch. Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast. April 16, 2018, US: Mexico Mass Graves Raise "Alarming Questions" about Government "Complicity" in September 2014 Cartel Killings premiering June 30. 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 . Horrifying Allende massacre still haunts Mexico. Four years later, and ten years since the Allende massacre, the families of those victimized by the Zetas and other criminal groups in Coahuilaare still waitingto learn whether the ICC will take up the case. 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. I would ask you the same thing, she replied. 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. 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. I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. Leave them. [At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. 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. [A]t that time I lived in La Colonia Presidentes, and I knew all of these people because they were from the town. 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. 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. The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . 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. 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. And outside the house there were four people with long arms who were dressed in black and had on bulletproof vests. He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. 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. "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. 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. I stopped working for Los Zetas because they disappeared my father who worked as a security guard at a construction site from where they also kidnapped another worker and a woman who I did not know, but she seemed to be a minor At the time of the disappearance of my father I was still with the municipal police and I asked the commander for help And he told me not to involve myself in these matters and that I should go home and go to sleep.-Declaration of former Allende police transit officer, July 31, 2014. 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. That we would turn a blind eye. 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]. In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . And as I am originally from here in Allende, and this is a small town, for this reason I know these people. He said that this was an injustice, since he was just a little boy. They began to see Allende not as an isolated spasm of violence but rather as one of the most explosive episodes of a wider problem of criminal violence and systematic subversion of legal authorities throughout the region. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. 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. [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). 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. 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. The six-part drama series is inspired by the Allende massacre in Mexico. [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. 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 . Few had the courage to defy Los Zetas. 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]. Later on the following Sunday, with all of those people locked up at the ranch, around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, I accompanied Comandante 7 and [Comandante Pala], together with various estacas, among others that I recall were [El Canelo, El Cubano, El Chilero, El Panda, El Ruso, El Flacaman, El Cabe and El Meno,] together with a municipal police patrol [in which were riding police officers Guadalupe valos Orozco, La Lupe, and Jess Alejandro Bernal Guerrero,] to a house on [Cuauhtmoc] Street in the Center of Allende, which is where Vctor Garza lived. 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. U.S. Prosecutions Bring Mexico Corruption into Focus While many of the corpses were probably destroyed in these larger fires, the Los Zetas cook interviewed on September 19, 2014,gave an especially detailed description of how he and El Chango together burned the bodies of at least three victims in individual barrels filled with diesel fuel. 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. 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. So they formed them into rows of people and later took them to the ranch of the [deleted] where they killed and burned them together with people from Allende. Many thousands disappeared in Mexico's drug war. El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. He got in the truck and returned to Allende, or at least thats what I think I dont know what happened to [Vctor] nor to his parents. She said she later learned he had been kidnapped from their house and turned over to a criminal group, probably Los Zetas. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. [8] The CNDH report does not name any of the victims, perpetrators or other witnesses it cites. 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]. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. 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. That if any citizens asked us for help that we would not pay attention to avoid getting into trouble. 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. 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.