Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. . [12]- Statement of Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. Elvira Espinoza told investigators about the day, about a week later, when she found two of her three missing grandchildren at an orphanage in Piedras Negras. For which reason I left the circus and I parked about two blocks from the house And outside the house I saw a red, four-door, Chevrolet pick-up truck with a bull bar [tumba burros] on the front. [8]But the initial three-year delay in starting the investigation has complicated the pursuit of justice for the massacre. 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. Photograph via . Vasquez then ordered that the father be killed. She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. 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. And as I am originally from here in Allende, and this is a small town, for this reason I know these people. About five estacas[9]participated, and with [deleted] and [deleted] ten more joined. The above account was confirmed by several others, including one of the shift commanders. (AP) MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash . 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. Volunteer Luis Herrera Estrada was one of the four Allende firefighters who responded to reports of a blaze at the Garza ranch, and his statement of November 23, 2014, three and a half years later, is the first detailed account in the file of what the firefighters saw at the ranch that night. Yesterday I heard machine guns right outside my door on Independencia. [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. 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. 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 . He recognized some of them: El Pala, El Cubano, El Pjaroall of them local men who worked for the Zetas. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed . 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. The Tamaulipas massacre: how the American Dream dies in Mexico [8] The CNDH report does not name any of the victims, perpetrators or other witnesses it cites. 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. Allende, Coahuila - Wikipedia 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 slowly unfolding investigation of the Allende massacre finally gained some momentum with the establishment of a special task force in 2014. Ten years later, the case has wide-ranging implications after investigative reporting in the U.S. and Mexico have linked the massacre to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and top Mexican security institutions. * * * * *. The Massacre In Allende | VICE on HBO (Extra) - YouTube 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. Following the title sequence is a short paragraph introducing the story of Allende, a Mexican border town unexpectedly overtaken by a powerful drug cartel that . The government should do more to find them. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. [7]A2005 FBI evaluationfound that the original Zetas had a military-style organizational structure that included counterintelligence, intelligence and tactical enforcement units. By 2010, Los Zetas had broken with the Gulf Cartel and independently controlled key narcotics smuggling corridors and strategically located cities in northeastern Mexico near the U.S. border. Most of them, he said, were killed and cremated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. 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. Netflix series inspired by story of 2011 massacre in Allende, Coahuila 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. Oct. 9, 2016. 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. The missing from the Allende massacre are among the 13,000 the . Of particular importance was the November 2014 testimony of a woman from Piedras Negras whose husband, himself a member of the Zetas, had been kidnapped, detained, and later killed by the group in 2010. 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. That things were going to get ugly.-Declaration of former Allende police shift commander, September 18, 2016. El Gobierno de Mxico ofreci este jueves una disculpa pblica a los familiares de las vctimas de la masacre de Allende, una comunidad del norteo estado de Coahuila donde entre el 18 y el 20 de marzo del 2011 alrededor de 300 personas fueron masacradas por narcotraficantes. 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. And also El [Chucho] killed a person, but I did not see who. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Remembering the Allende Massacre - JUSTICE IN MEXICO January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History 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. One of the homes destroyed in Allende in 2011. shares. 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. 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. In written statements, both themayorand thepolice director said they had only limited contemporaneous understanding of the events of March 18-20, 2011, and claimed that they did not receive any reports about the violence as it was happening. 'Somos.' Summary & Ending, Explained - How Allende Massacre Was They massacred 26 people in two days, including women and children . 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. 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. [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. 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. I still love Mexico. In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common, the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand out. 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. [6]In January, the bodies of 19 Central American migrants werefound in Tamaulipas, a neighboring Mexican border state and the site of hundreds of still largely unexplained migrant murders over the past eleven years. Netflix's 'Somos.' gives a human face to unspeakable tragedy 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! Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History First published on Wed 6 Nov 2019 16.31 EST. 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. Many needed the money. Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. 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. Gunmen open fire in a roadside eatery, leaving nine customers dead in pools of blood. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico, by Ginger Thompson, ProPublica, June 12, 2017. He said that this was an injustice, since he was just a little boy. 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.. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. Beginning as a group of deserters from an elite unit of the armed forces at the service of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas would go on to become one of the most powerful and feared cartels in Mexico before infighting and the loss of leaders started the organization's decline. 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. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. Another explained that he stopped cooperating with the Zetas after they kidnapped his father. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. Leave them. A fire department volunteer said he also saw many familiar faces among the victims, the Zetas, and the police officials gathered there. Las Cruces bowling alley massacre still unsolved after 30 years After three days of abuse, on the night of March 20, the Zetas took him to the Garza ranch and put him to work managing the incoming truckloads of corpses along with a few living hostages. Declassified Documents Released on The Allende Massacre