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New York Times
10-05-2025
- New York Times
Mexican Mayor Implicated in Drug Cartel Ranch Inquiry
The mayor of a small Mexican town has been accused of colluding with one of the country's most violent drug cartels to operate a recruitment and training center that was uncovered in March. The mayor, José Asunción Murguía Santiago was charged with organized crime offenses and forced disappearance, prosecutors said at a hearing on Friday. The site of the center, in the western state of Jalisco, gained notoriety after volunteer searchers announced the discovery of hundreds of shoes piled together, heaps of clothing and what seemed to be human bone fragments found in an abandoned ranch surrounded by sugar cane fields in Teuchitlán, a town outside Guadalajara, sending shock waves across the nation. The searchers claimed the ranch was the site of human cremations, but authorities have since said there is no proof of that. The allegations against Mr. Murguía Santiago served as a stinging reminder of Mexican officials' long history of collusion with organized crime, at a time when President Trump has proposed using American troops to crack down on cartels. Mexico's president refused. Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said last week that until recently the ranch in Teuchitlán had been used by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel for training and recruiting. Mexican officials have said that the cartel lured new recruits with fake job offers to the ranch. But in a departure from previous comments, Mr. Gertz insisted that there was no proof of cremations carried out there, and said claims that the site had been an 'extermination camp' were unfounded. Volunteer groups have disputed the federal findings, insisting that 17 batches of charred human remains, including teeth and bone fragments, have been recovered from the ranch. Mr. Gertz said his office did not know how many people could have disappeared at the ranch and that investigators would 'go after those who were covering up or participating in' the cartel's operations. The case has brought renewed attention to the more than 127,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico since the 1960s. It has also become a thorn in the side of the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, who is under pressure to solve the country's disappearance crisis once and for all. Since she took office in October, nearly 8,700 people have vanished, according to government data. While Ms. Sheinbaum has vowed to use her forces to counter the cartels — and has stepped up those efforts since Mr. Trump came to power — the nexus between Mexican authorities and drug groups remains a problem. So far, more than a dozen suspects have been arrested in connection with the Teuchitlán case. They include four former police officers and a police chief, as well as a cartel leader identified as José Gregorio Lastra, who the authorities say oversaw the training center. According to Mr. Lastra's testimony, revealed in part by Mexican officials, his group would kill, beat and torture people who resisted training or tried to escape from the ranch. Mr. Murguía Santiago, now in his third term in office, is the first government official to have been detained. His arrest on May 3, experts say, signals the close-knit relationship that organized crime has established with local authorities in some parts of Mexico, either through collaboration or coercion. 'Either you try to stop the territorial advance of organized crime, and you pay dearly for that,' said David Mora, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, an organization that monitors and tries to mitigate armed conflicts, 'or you bend and cooperate.' Details of the case against the mayor came out on Friday during a hearing. According to prosecutors, he allegedly visited the ranch several times in 2024. Prosecutors also accuse Mr. Murguía Santiago of being on the cartel's payroll. In exchange, they say, the mayor allowed them to operate the training center and offered surveillance through the municipal police to make sure recruits wouldn't escape. Mr. Murguía Santiago has so far refused to testify. During the hearing, his defense team brought a witness, his secretary, who said that the mayor could not have visited the ranch in the months he is accused of having been there because she was with him 'most of the time' — though she would sometimes lose track of him in the afternoons, she said. In March, Mr. Murguía Santiago told reporters that he had no knowledge of what was happening at the ranch. 'I am not worried,' he said in a televised interview. 'We are not involved in anything. What I have always tried to do as mayor is to help people.' Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has accused the Mexican government of being controlled by the cartels, suggesting that U.S. forces are needed to counter their vast drug making and smuggling empire. That has led to bouts of tension with the Mexican government, which insists that a unilateral attack by the Pentagon against the cartels would be a violation of Mexico's sovereignty and set back bilateral relations by decades.
Euronews
06-05-2025
- Euronews
Mexican mayor arrested as part of cartel training site probe
ADVERTISEMENT The mayor of a town in the west Mexican state of Jalisco has been arrested over his alleged links to a notorious cartel training site. José Murguía Santiago, was detained on Saturday as part of a federal investigation into the Izaguirre Ranch, where human bones and clothing were found earlier this year. Located outside Teuchitlán, the town where he is the mayor, the site is thought to have been used by the infamous Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Speaking to the local media, the mayor denied any connection with the ranch. However, prosecutors claim he knew of its existence and failed to act. The site, which has been dubbed Mexico's "ranch of horror," made headlines in March when people searching for their relatives announced that they had discovered shoes, clothes and charred bones there, following a tip-off. The Jalisco Search Warriors, the group that found the items on the ranch, called it an "extermination camp." Related Search group in Mexico discovers possible cartel mass killing site At the time, they blamed the authorities for failing to properly investigate the property, which was first uncovered by federal soldiers in September. After the news about the ranch caused uproar across Mexico, the government said it would lead the investigation into what happened there. Speaking last week, Attorney-General Alejandro Gertz suggested that the facility had not been used as an extermination or cremation site. His response met with frustration from the Jalisco Search Warriors, who claimed Gertz was mistaken and that the property was more than just a cartel recruitment and training centre. Last month, two members of the collective, Carmen Morales and her son Jaime Ramirez, were shot dead, the Jalisco state prosecutor's office said. In the past few decades, more than 120,000 people have disappeared in Mexico. The federal authorities are not doing enough to investigate these human rights abuses and to end the impunity surrounding them, campaigners say.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- New York Times
No Evidence of Cremations at Mexican Ranch, Attorney General Says
An abandoned ranch in western Mexico that groups searching for missing relatives had claimed was an 'extermination camp' — because of discarded personal items and burned remains found there — was a training hub for a major cartel, Mexico's attorney general announced on Tuesday. But, he said 'there is not a single piece of evidence to prove' that the ranch was the site of human cremations. At a news conference presenting his office's findings so far in the high-profile case, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said that the Izaguirre ranch in Teuchitlán, a village near Guadalajara in Jalisco state, was 'totally proven' to have been used as a recruitment, training and operations center by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most violent criminal organizations in the country. He said that conclusion was based on testimonials and documents. But in a departure from previous comments, Mr. Gertz insisted that there was no proof of cremations at the ranch. Mr. Gertz said a container of very small bone fragments was found by the authorities who originally discovered the ranch in September. He said that studies conducted by a Mexico City university on evidence, dirt and other materials did not find heat levels over 200 degrees Celsius. Cremations, he said, require levels in excess of 800 degrees. Earlier this month, Mr. Gertz said that investigators had not found evidence of crematories at the ranch, but that some human remains found there had 'traces of some type of cremation.' And Mexico's security minister, Omar García Harfuch, said last month that, based on a detained person's testimony, the cartel went as far as killing those who resisted training or tried to escape. On Tuesday, Mr. Gertz said that, beyond the one body found by the authorities in September, when the National Guard exchanged fire with people at the ranch, investigators had not found more bodies or bones. The ditches and holes in the ground — which a search group had believed to be cremation ovens — were bonfires, Mr. Gertz said. Héctor Flores, a leader of a search group in Jalisco state, said in a phone interview that search groups still believed that the ranch had been an extermination site and that people had been cremated there given what they found last month. He said that officials were using technical language in an effort to change the narrative. 'The government can call it whatever it wants, but I think Mexican society is mature enough and aware of this whole Izaguirre topic to not believe the lies of the federal government,' he said. Mr. Gertz said that authorities had no idea how many people may have been recruited or disappeared at the ranch. He said the forensic team was still studying the bone fragments to identify them, a task that has been complicated by their small size. Multiple times on Tuesday, Mr. Gertz reminded the public that the investigation was ongoing and that his office has only had control of the case since late March, when President Claudia Sheinbaum asked him to take over. After a group of volunteers searching for their missing relatives received a tip in early March about a possible mass grave hidden in western Mexico, photos of heaps of shoes and clothes shocked a country already scarred by many episodes of brutal violence and clandestine graves. More than 120,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since the country began keeping track in 1962, according to official data. More than 15,000 have gone missing in the state of Jalisco, with many of the cases believed to be linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Last month, Mr. Gertz criticized the investigation carried out by local authorities and said it had been riddled with irregularities. Local officials failed to secure the site after it was first located in September, and it was abandoned until the search group came along last month. On Tuesday, Mr. Gertz said that a state human rights commission in Jalisco told local authorities in 2021 of illicit activities at the ranch 'but they did nothing.' Among the 14 people currently detained in connection with the case, Mr. Gertz said there are three local police officers, including a police chief, as well as a person whom the authorities have identified as a cartel leader who oversaw the training center. 'We're going to go after those who were covering up or participating in' the cartel's operations at the ranch, Mr. Gertz said, noting that this included public officials. He also said that his office was investigating other possible 'narco-ranches' in the area. As far as the bags of clothes that were found at the ranch — but that have not been studied by local authorities — Mr. Gertz said that he did not know whom they belonged to. But he said that federal investigators planned to work with search groups to help identify the items and then perhaps link them to their owners through forensic tests.
Straits Times
29-04-2025
- Straits Times
Jalisco ranch was longstanding operation site for organised crime, Mexico AG says
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's attorney general, Alejandro Gertz, said on Tuesday that the ranch in Teuchtitlan, Mexico's Jalisco state, where human remains, piles of clothes and weapons were found last month was a longstanding operation and training site for organized crime. The so-called "ranch of horror" was discovered in March littered with bone fragments, ashes and alleged makeshift crematoriums along with hundreds of shoes and backpacks, as bloody cartel violence continues to hit Mexico. A large number of warheads, casings, operation targets, weapons and equipment used to train people were also found at the site, Gertz added during a press conference. "It was a longstanding operation site, where people were recruited, trained and from where they went out to operate," Gertz answered when questioned about the links between organized crime and the ranch. The attorney general also reiterated that the activities at the ranch and the people who controlled it were linked to the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which authorities have accused of forcibly recruiting young people. Jalisco is one of the states with the highest number of reported missing persons in Mexico, according to official data, and it is the home base of the CJNG. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Yahoo
Mexico's attorney general investigating origin of human remains found at ranch
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's attorney general said on Wednesday that his office was investigating human remains found at a ranch in the western Mexican state of Jalisco in order to determine their origin and the cause of the victims' deaths. In a press conference, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said there had been flaws in the investigation thus far and that actions would be taken to ensure accountability if local authorities in Jalisco committed irregularities in the investigation.
