His mother thanked everyone for having risked their own safety to help find her son. In 2016, the Mexican Attorney Generals Office charged Duarte with embezzlement, illicit enrichment and money laundering. Martnez was considered by her peers to be the leader of a group of five journalists whose reputations were above reproach. LEFT: The family of slain Proceso photojournalist Rubn Espinosa during his funeral in Mexico City in 2015. Forbes magazine had by then dubbed him one of the 10 most corrupt Mexicans. But Pea Nieto argued that Herreras business acumen made him the perfect choice for the job. We may never know who killed Regina, but I know who didnt kill Regina., Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador said at a news conference in November that he would ask that the homicide case be reexamined. Dead.. She was never able to find the mysterious witness. Luis shook hands with Lucianos father but barely said a word, then walked off, wiping his eyes. Logan was in Cairo covering. The intelligence officials said one of those kidnapped disclosed that the group had contacted Martnez. Lpez Ramrez had made a career from defending some of Mexico's most infamous cartel leaders, representing clients such as the leader of Los Zetas . She went to the authorities local, state and federal but none would help her. When I heard him just now it was like my own child.. She threatened the order of things in San Fernando. mass graves along San Fernandos peripheries. Watch the exact moment a man is executed with machine gun fire by cartel members until his guts protrude from his belly. I very much regret each death and each person who receives some mistreatment. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. body of work by photographer Flix Mrquez exploring their lives through the belongings they left behind. Journalist Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, who was killed by members of a drug cartel for threatening to expose them. The police came and arrested her, later discovering that some of the ransom calls had come from her house. Veracruz, once best known for its thriving port, lush beaches and colonial architecture, got a new name: The mass grave of Mexico.. As the local economy struggled, Duarte was hiding the states financial crisis, she wrote. On Thursday, the Sheriffs Office released the names of the victims: Dylan Lyons, 24, Nathacha Augustin, 38, and Tyonna Major, 9. The dread twisted into rage. Brigades searched mile after mile of barren scrubland for signs of him. Mrs. Rodrguez picked through the debris left by the kidnappers: grisly stains on soiled tabletops, bones of varying sizes, some mere shards. The family doubted it would bring Karen home, but they sent the money anyway. LEFT: Martnez in an undated photo. Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel, also known by her alias "La Catrina," was shot in the neck Friday as Mexico's army, National Guard and Michoacn state police raided the safe house where she stayed. As Mrs. Rodrguez sat outside the interrogation room, the teenager asked whether he could see his mother. Fontes, who now runs a security company, Fontes International Solutions, said the problem is endemic to Mexico. (Alberto Morales Garcia/Forbidden Stories) RIGHT: Martnez with Patricio Chirinos Calero, former governor of Veracruz. He and others of his time were fortunate that the governors who followed them were successors theyd chosen from their own party who covered the traces of the previous corruption.. 1 min read. When he finally did, some was too damaged to analyze. The violence against a female reporter stood out as something unusual and unexpected, said Thomas A. Shannon Jr., former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. If it was only a matter of time. At the burial site, as a crowd surrounded the rectangular pit, he stood to the side, weeping. Follow @Borderland_Beat . Over the years, kidnappers had already ransomed several members of Lucianos family, including his father, held for 33 days in 2012. Mexican marines had killed six of the accomplices, Cristian said in his statement. She told her daughter that she would not rest until she found the people who had taken Karen. Drug cartel assassin from Colombia, 39, said loved to kill people and killed many. As the months passed, Mrs. Rodrguez continued to fill her bag with clues she wrung from the case files. Even before her death, Herrera was facing mounting allegations. Rarely did she talk to her co-workers about her sensitive investigations. Mrs. Rodrguez, already separated from her husband, moved in with her older daughter, Azalea. (Flix Mrquez/AP). The international collaboration was organized by Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit group based in Paris whose mission is to continue the reporting of murdered journalists. The child. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times. She needed a name. They spent weeks baiting Luciano with a false Facebook account of a young girl. [The sniper rifles flowing to Mexican cartels show a decade of U.S. failure]. The government dispatched convoys of soldiers, police officers and investigators to San Fernando. 237 points 27 comments. I dont care if they kill me, Mrs. Rodrguez once told Ms. Saldivar Villavicencio. For Mrs. Rodrguez, the pursuit of justice was an escape from the pain. A portrait of MiriamRodrguez hanging on the wall of her home, now owned by her husband. In June of that year, nearly a month after Mrs. Rodrguezs death, officials in the state of Veracruz, acting with information she had provided, arrested yet another suspect in Karens case. Instead, he agreed to become a political adviser to the PRI, Mexicos long-ruling conservative party. But to force the police into action, she needed more than a location. It was headline news in Mexico, with calls for a thorough investigation. In 2017, remains of 250 people were unearthed in Veracruz. They gave news conferences. (Alberto Morales Garcia/Forbidden Stories). The catalog is part of a body of work by photographer Flix Mrquez exploring their lives through the belongings they left behind. In August of this year, the family went to Mexico City to pressure the government. In custody, he filled in details missing from Mrs. Rodrguezs investigation, coughing up the names and locations of some accomplices. Feb. 23, 202203:17. Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, looking through his mothers belongings, holding a photo of Sama, right, among other evidence she kept in her black satchel with details of her daughter Karens kidnappers and killers. She urinated in cups and ran her car battery down listening to the radio in the dark. La Voz is one such example of this, as the newspaper is not real . He lashed out at critics. Right now, what we are asking for, and what Miriam asked for a number of times, is security, said Lucianos father. They needed a bit more money, they said, just $500. She sought to prove the traffickers and their accomplices had executed hundreds of people: Teenage dealers and entire families. Mexican Soldiers guard a crime scene where a man was killed by gun fire in downtown Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on April 21, 2019. . By the time the government issued an arrest warrant, Sama had already skipped town. For the next several hours, Lucianos family fanned out across the city on a manic hunt. Weeks earlier, volunteers had passed the very spot and missed it. Sheriff Mina said on Thursday that the news vehicle didnt have any markings that stood out, adding that the suspect had passed by another news vehicle.. For four more years, he is known to have killed 30 people total, acting as a hitman for the Zeta cartel. As he drove back to San Fernando, the kidnappers called. Luis, Mrs. Rodrguezs son, knew from his own experience that the only way to find a body was to get someone to talk. She held him there for nearly an hour, awaiting the police to make the arrest. In 2010, federal authorities discovered the corpses of 72 Central American migrants at a ranch on the citys outskirts, believed at the time to be the most savage killings ever perpetrated by a cartel. Sheriff Mina said his office would be conducting additional ballistic testing on the recovered gun. Who knew how many tracts were scored with anonymous graves? Mrs. Garza ignored the calls, as Mrs. Rodrguez had, but the family asked for security from the government. She stopped every few minutes to catch her breath and study the photo of her next target: the florist. Woman Cries Out In Pain As Drug Cartels Slowly Dismember Her Alive Before Beheading Her On Video By Andrew Bieszad on July 5, 2020 in Featured, General While the world is filled with great concern about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, economic collapse, and the future US election, there are a lot of suffering people in many places. Video: Mexican soldiers arrested for torturing woman after horrific video emerged of them helping a police officer suffocating helpless detainee with plastic bag. With an official-looking ID in hand, she spent the better part of a day conducting a fake poll of the neighborhood until she got basic details on one of her daughters captors. She wrote everything down and stuffed it into her black computer bag, building her investigation and tracking them down, one by one. Lucianos family stayed. Though he assumed leadership of his mothers collective, the movement faded in her absence. Eight years after Martnezs homicide on April 28, 2012, a team of reporters from Mexico, Europe and The Washington Post has picked up where Martnez left off. Police sources are saying that you should stop investigating these leads.. In all, she was instrumental in taking down 10 people, a mad campaign for justice that made her famous, but vulnerable. They felt almost perfunctory now, performative. A decrepit tractor marked the grave at the abandoned ranch, at the end of a dirt road. Mrs. Rodrguez raced home and dove back into her research, discovering that Ms. Betancourt was involved romantically with one of Karens kidnappers, who was in prison for an unrelated crime. The promise, then, was of a book that could not only be a rewarding read but a transcendental one, a novel that would be emblematic, even canonical. A white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped prison quietly pulled up behind her, according to the police report. Having confessed to the murders of at least five men, she revealed she enjoyed both drinking the warm blood of her victims and having sex with the dead bodies following the homicide. She became a social media sleuth, spending countless hours trawling Karens Facebook profile, looking for clues. Zetas behead and dismember four women from the Gulf Cartel The video shows four women on their knees in a field, their hands tied behind their backs. It was a witchs brew, said Seeley, who now runs Constos Global Risk Management. Los Zetas could not operate in Veracruz without his permission And so the family, like Mrs. Rodrguez, broke the rules that governed how victims usually respond in such cases. Eventually, she found a federal policeman willing to assist. 1. She was still wearing her cast, and using crutches, on Mothers Day. But the fight was very different this time. Benjamin LeBaron, an anti-crime activist who founded neighborhood patrols against cartels, was killed in 2009. By the 2000s, the state of Veracruz, with its huge Gulf of Mexico port, oil industry and hidden trails, had become a key part of the route from South and Central America for cartels smuggling people, drugs and other contraband north to the United States. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnez's death was brutal. He sprinted along the narrow pedestrian pass, hoping to get away. He insisted that the cartel did not have her daughter, but offered to help find her for a fee of $2,000, and Mrs. Rodrguez paid. She jammed her handgun into his back. Cartel violence has long scarred San . Her husband, inside watching television, found her face down on the street, hand tucked inside her purse, next to her pistol. She said it matter-of-factly, as though describing her sleep. She joined Proceso in 2000. Then she donned a government uniform she had kept from an old, low-level job at the Health Ministry. Her story offers a singular account of Mexicos deterioration by 2020 into an anguished nation, beset by cartel-corrupted government institutions and haunted by thousands of killings and disappearances. At least, not in the way they had hoped. During the trial, FBI Agent Scott Lawson testified that Colorado-Cessa was established as an intermediary between Zetas leader Efran Teodoro Torres and the government of Veracruz to allow the circulation of drugs freely in the state of Veracruz and, at the same time, to help Fidel Herrera finance his campaign as governor.. Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, was closing down his own shop in Ciudad Victoria to attend the festivities. The murder took place on Sunday night when a gunman shot and killed Lourdes Maldonado inside her vehicle, the Baja California Attorney General's Office revealed. That Karen and Mrs. Rodrguez now lay together was a small solace. In three years, Mrs. Rodrguez captured nearly every living member of the crew that had abducted her daughter for ransom, a rogues gallery of criminals who tried to start new lives as a born-again Christian, a taxi driver, a car salesman, a babysitter. The four other parts can be found at forbiddenstories.org. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. The brutal killing and mutilation of a 25-year-old woman in Mexico has sparked outrage and prompted calls for a change in the country's law, after several media outlets published a leaked. U.S. Attorney Nick Brown's office announced Tuesday that 37-year-old Jose Barbosa of Kent was sentenced to 148 months in prisonjust over 12 yearsplus five years of supervised release once . The cemetery emptied, but they stayed, clinging to the moment. And at 14, little Luciano helped them both when he wasnt at school. But Karen stayed, to finish school and help run her moms small cowboy apparel shop, Rodeo Boots. Duarte is serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement and money laundering. All were murdered during Mexico's ongoing cocaine wars. It is unclear whether the gunman knew that the reporter and photographer in the vehicle were journalists. Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues. Laura Borbolla, a senior prosecutor in the Mexican Attorney Generals Office who investigated Martnezs homicide in 2012, said in interviews that state police and prosecutors made serious mistakes in their handling of the case. He also said hed had good luck since childhood, which is how he explained twice winning the national lottery, pocketing $6.8million in 2008 and $3.6million the following year. Cinemas, nightclubs and shops were almost empty, a consequence of the violence, she wrote. In 2015, Proceso photographer Rubn Espinosa, who had been physically harassed and verbally threatened for taking photos of crime scenes, finally fled to the safety of Mexico City, only to be tracked there and killed by assassins, his colleagues believe. The following day, Lucianos father deposited a bag of cash on an abandoned dirt road that ran perpendicular to the highway, as Karens father had. So many families never found their loved ones. The city of San Fernando has been scarred by a decade-long war between cartel factions. She quoted people saying they knew Herrera had given the orders. Some 50 young women disappeared over a three-day period after attending parties with Zetas and local officials, according to media accounts. Mexico's notorious drug cartels appear to have resumed some of its bloodiest tactics, after nine half-naked and tortured bodies recently were found hanging from a bridge on a federal highway in. Luis said he had to sneak onto the street to give her a jump. Perhaps softened by her kindness, Cristian told them everything. We arent looking for a corpse, Luis recalled Anabel saying. Men claiming to speak for Mexico's most powerful drug cartel have released a video threatening to murder a prominent female news anchor over what they deem to be unfair coverage. Armed with a handgun, a fake ID card and disguises, Miriam Rodrguez was a one-woman detective squad, defying a system where criminal impunity often prevails. Hours before the body was found, the police discovered the cousin who had helped orchestrate little Lucianos abduction, in a hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg. Her family was not satisfied, but she didnt let that stop her. Lucianos father expressed gratitude. A disturbing video surfaced of . His son, Javier, said via Twitter that his father was ill and unable to comment: My father has been in a hospital since April; this is a fact that you can easily corroborate; he suffered a stroke in April and has been in intensive care ever since. They slept in tents pitched in the city center and wore ponchos to weather the seasonal storms. In 2015, Virginia reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot and killed during their live TV broadcast for CBS affiliate WDBJ7. When professors at the University of Veracruz would not stop publicly criticizing him, he denied the university millions in state funds and created a new university where he handed out credentials to students loyal to him, according to press accounts at the time. Police officers patrolling a remote area, favored by cartel members to move undetected, outside Reynosa, Mexico. The burial site, as the newspaper is not real wiping his eyes now owned her! 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