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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. El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Jeremy Schwartz. The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. Source: ProPublica. Mexico Mormon massacre: US victims were shot at point-blank range 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. How US intelligence has helped cartels kill thousands in Mexico The recent violence is also a reminder that Mexican authorities have largely failed to protect the countrys civilian population from historically high levels of violence or to alleviate the effects of an ever-deepening security crisis. I want to point out that I did not know any of the dead And when we had them in the barrels [deleted] began to bathe the corpses in diesel so that they could then be set on fire, and I was then sent to keep a lookout a few meters from there to make sure that no one was coming. Elvira Espinoza and her husband were among the first to inform federal authorities about the violence, telling investigators that she and her husband reported the disappearance of Arturo, Liliana and the three children to the military garrison along Highway 57, just outside of Allende. Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. 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. 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. * * * * *. Go fuck your mother! In fact, sometimes [deleted] would come to the municipal jail and take people away. The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . 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. In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common, the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand out. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. Most of them, he said, were killed and cremated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. 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. Jos Alfredo Jimnez was one of the first of the Zetas to arrive at Luis Garzas ranch that night. Fax: 202/994-7005Contact by email. Chilling New Report Cites Greater Death Toll in Allende Massacre Texting with her husband throughout the night, Sarah learned bits and pieces of what he and Arturo were up to. That things were going to get ugly.-Declaration of former Allende police shift commander, September 18, 2016. 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. And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. The situation was especially dire in Piedras Negras, where Los Zetas had turned the state prison into a center of operations. 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 . 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.] Lilianas husband, Arturo, had also been unable to reach his wife or her parents. 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. It is estimated that over 300 went missing or killed in March of 2011. 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. There were other people in civilian clothes who carried long arms, and these people were Los Zetas, since I realized that there at the [Garza] ranch were [El Pala,] whose name is [Fernando Ros Bustos]; [El Canelo,] whose name is [Germn Zaragoza Snchez]; [El Cubano], whose name is [Juan Rafael Arredondo Oviedo]; [El Pjaro], whose name is [Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar]; [El Flacaman,] whose name is [Gabriel Zaragoza Snchez,] among other people, some of whom I did not know, but they seemed to be from the south since they wore sandals and carried machetes. Guanajuato: Tourist Mecca Turned to Killing Field The money went through the [police] commander, which he then delivered to the RTs [shift commanders] and from them to the rest of us police officials. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. 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. Members of the criminal group Los Zetas could be seen unloading barrels next to a storage shed near the back of the property. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). But he never came back. Horrifying Allende massacre still haunts Mexico. He said that as many as ten of his family members disappeared that day, including Vctor, Alma, and their youngest son Julio Csar. Access request to Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), Freedom of Information Act request to DEA. 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. Forensic specialists from the Mexican Federal Police examine one of the primary crime scenes from the 2011 Allende massacre on January 28, 2014. 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. Only a handful the Allende massacre victims actually had ties to the Zetasrunning drugs across the border or, according to some witness accounts, laundering drug money. 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. Many thousands disappeared in Mexico's drug war. 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. Gunmen open fire in a roadside eatery, leaving nine customers dead in pools of blood. December 9, 2020, Six Years On, Ayotzinapa Investigations Advance Criminals were shooting up the street and two police officers . 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. 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. How DEA Informers Sparked a Massacre in Mexico - The Daily Beast [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. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. InMilenio, Diego Osorno writes aboutThe Sad Case of the Two Sergio Garzas,Juniors uncle and cousin, who were murdered, along with other family members, in March and August 2012part of a continuing effort by Los Zetas to eliminate loose ends from within the Garza family. Warning: violence in San Miguel de Allende. September 29, 2020, Five Years Later, the Search Continues 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.. [H]e was telling me that he wanted to look for the Zetas to see what they were asking for the return of his family. ALLENDE, Coahuila - Only abandoned and destroyed farms and the self-imposed silence of the inhabitants of Allende remain after the massacre perpetrated in this city in . And each estaca is made up of four assassins, but there were trucks that brought more people in the trailers. Document 1 August 25, 2007 Shutdown Slows but Doesn't Stop Central Americans Headed North U.S. Embassy in Mexico, cable, sensitive, 3 pp. 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. Oct. 27: A police officer is seen outside a car wash after gunmen burst into the shop and killed at least 15 people in Tepic, Mexico. He told me: "The United States . What is clear is that the failure to do so sealed the fates of an untold number of victims who were murdered at the ranch later that night. 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. Mexican Federal Police document bits of teeth recovered at the Garza Ranch, January 28, 2014(Source:Document 41: Forensic Anthropology Technical Report, April 11, 2014). Rodolfo Snchez Robles, who worked as a chauffeur and mechanic for the Garza family, seemed to know something was wrong on the day he disappeared. A center for car manufacturing northwest of Mexico City, Guanajuato averaged at least nine homicides a day in 2020, one of the highest murder rates in the country. 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. San Miguel de Allende might be voted the nicest town in Mexico by many travel magazines, but it is not safe at the moment and I advise you not to come here right now. In April of 2014 . [Rodolfo] came home all covered in grease, ate, and later, as we sat outside smoking a cigarette, he told me, Things are getting to be a real pain in the ass, but he didnt tell me anything else, and we were there for about ten minutes. 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. 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. [A]nd how the Zetas were shouting at them and hitting and mistreating them, the then-chief of the department told investigators in his 2014 statement to state prosecutors. [14] In many cases, the names of the people identified by firefighters Lpez Tamez and De Len Ramos are legible behind clumsily applied redactions. 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. Subscribe. He gets up into the truck and with his hand he says goodbye leaving his suitcase there at the house because he was supposedly going to come back. How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico - Magazine 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. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Special thanks to former National Security Archiveintern Emily Taylor for her assistance with this collection. 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 . 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. Did United States Trigger a Drug Cartel Massacre in Mexico? See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. [10] How the U.S. Netflix's 'Somos.' gives a human face to unspeakable tragedy 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. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. Prosecutors said at least a dozen specially trained police officials may also have been involved. 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. Leaving aside the role of the DEA and the wider implications of the case, todays posting focuses on the most revealing documents among the facts-on-the-ground evidence gathered by the state of Coahuila. When they did not return or respond to phone calls, their wives became concerned. 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. On the afternoon of March 20, aman reported the March 18 disappearance of his wifes parents and five other family members. [12] While the names of Zetas, police officials, and witnesses are for the most part redacted in the volumes released through CNDH, a previously published portion of El Pjaros declaration reveals some of those redacted names. Remembering the Allende Massacre. I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. He told me that we were not up for parties, she said. Child survivors of massacred family spent 10 hours hiding in Mexican When known, names have been added in brackets. [18]Others have called on Mexico to prosecute top Coahuila state officials, including former governors, for allowing criminal violence to flourish. [12]- Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. October 2, 2018, Transcripts of intercepted cell phones open new lines of investigation in Ayotzinapa case According to testimony, the police would also arrest and detain people wanted by the Zetas, keeping them in the city jail until the Zetas arrived to take them away. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. Thats the last thing I know about my family., Almas brother, Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, also witnessed part of the attack and was one of the first to file a missing persons report in the case. 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. She is the goddaughter of Salvador Allende , the first socialist president of Chile who was her father's . Bri Rooke. I dont know who those people were, just that they were people that the police detained or his own people that he ordered be locked up when they handled themselves badly, or people with whom he had a disagreement [tuviera pedos]. He said that he and Rodolfo Jr., his brother-in-law, were going out to look for them. Residents of the small town of Villa Union, 12 miles from Allende, said Tuesday . 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. 92110 United States [email protected] +1 619-260-2299. 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. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? Perspective | How a U.S. drug enforcement operation got dozens of " We will try to look upon those individuals who caused the Allende Massacre. 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. The six-part drama series is inspired by the Allende massacre in Mexico. The files depict a town almost completely beholden to LosZetasfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. [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. I n the dead of night on Jan. 28, 1918, a group of white Texas Rangers, U.S. military men and local ranchers burst into the homes of Mexican and Mexican American . That they did not want to see us going out to extinguish the houses. With the help of these same police, we put them in the patrol vehicle. . [1] Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. And also El [Chucho] killed a person, but I did not see who. 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. premiering June 30. US Intelligence Helped Cause 2011 Massacre in Mexico Over three consecutive days in March 2011, a series . 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. For the family members, nothing has changed. 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. 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. The attack at Allende began on the night of March 18, 2011, when the Zetas and their collaborators launched a coordinated three-day sweep through the town, situated only about 25 miles from the U.S. border. [5] The Mexican government signaled its intention to soften some of the more severe restrictions imposed by the new law. Chilling New Report by FXB's Sergio Aguayo Cites Greater Death Toll in 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 . They are included here in brackets. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History [I]n fact, he sometimes came and went inside the cells to beat those who were locked up. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. Among other evidence is thestatementof a former Allende police official, Fernando Hernndez Reyes, who gave a vivid account of his involvement in the kidnappings. But he did not say anything to me. [A]t that time I lived in La Colonia Presidentes, and I knew all of these people because they were from the town. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were . Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. September 27, 2019 1:06 PM EDT. The George Washington University 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. 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 . (AP) MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash . That report, sponsored by a government-backed victims' rights commission and undertaken by scholars at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico, says that even now Mexican authorities show "less . The newly released files on Allende, including evidence gathered in the weeks and months immediately following the massacre, show just how inadequate these investigations have been. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. 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. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed . 'Somos.' on Netflix gives Mexican massacre a Hollywood twist - Los 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. [17] The Zetas member is not identified in the text but from context appears to be El Canelo. Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. 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.