“Violence in Ciudad Juárez is like a river that sometimes overflows and sometimes returns to its course,” says criminologist Óscar Máynez Grijalba. On August 11, Cereso 3 prison rioted and the water spread through the streets, leaving 11 dead between bullets and shop fires. Everyone knew that the orders came from the prison where El Neto, the criminal leader of the Mexicles, was being held. And those who didn’t know could hear it from the mouth of State Governor María Eugenia Campos, who assured it in February of this year. He then told the press that the killings had been declining over those months. But the river overflowed again on January 1, again with the focus on Cereso 3: an armed attack outside and rioting inside the prison left 17 dead and 30 escaped prisoners, including El Neto. It was the third time he tried. Máynez Grijalba claims that the criminal “need not have been in this prison, but in a maximum-security federal prison”. Everyone thought so. But there are prisoners in Mexico who will do as they please.
The country’s highest security authorities announced this Monday that loot of 1.7 million pesos had been discovered in the fugitive’s cell and in some others, presumably from the sale of drugs, which they also found by the kilo and well packaged. In those bedrooms there were plasma TVs, a safe, long guns, bullets, bulletproof vests, exactly the same things they would have found if they searched the drug dealer’s apartment. They are the leaders of the prison and control the violence outside the prison. “Neither state nor local politics have the capacity to counter them, only a federal security strategy could, but there is none. They put guns, drugs, women in prisons, celebrate with singers. And this is happening all over Mexico,” says the criminologist, who is also a professor at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez.
Máynez Grijalva refers to the so-called narco-state, i.e. a network of corruption and bribery in which police officers, civil servants, politicians, judges and criminals operate. There is money for everyone and nobody wants to get out of the business or can’t. silver or lead. As for why El Neto wasn’t in a maximum security prison, the answer is simple. When attempts are made to transfer these criminals, they revolt and spread violence everywhere, or receive legal protection to stop the proceedings. The judges grant it. silver or lead. In June 2021, Chihuahua’s still governor, Javier Corral, filed the motion to transfer El Neto to a federal prison along with other criminal leaders. “These are lengthy processes that require documents, files, legal resources, and most of the time they get protection because there are very corrupt judges,” says Corral, who had to visit then-President of the Supreme Court Arturo Zaldívar during his tenure to get Help “to solve the problem of protection”. Corral follows El Neto closely for three times ordering his death, in which his bodyguards were injured. He points out that this was the third time the delinquent tried to escape from custody. “The first time he tried it was during a transfer for a court hearing, there were gunshots and one hit him in the head, but he survived.” Corral today blames the current Chihuahuan administration for the transfer effort he initiated to have forgotten the prisoner. “It happened on August 11th [con el nuevo motín en la cárcel] And they didn’t lift a finger. There must be a lot of background. Just because of what happened then, they should have done away with the prosecutor and the director of the penitentiary,” the former president suggests.
After Sunday’s massacre, prison director Alejandro Alvarado was fired, the transfer of prisoners was urgently initiated and an investigation into the incident was launched. “The director had to be imprisoned and not fired,” suggests Corral, who has serious disagreements with his successor Maru Campos, both from the same party, the PAN, although Corral has already announced his resignation. When the fire was extinguished and the prison shooting stopped, the shame was exposed, forcing authorities to realize that what was happening behind bars was unacceptable. At a press conference, public prosecutor Roberto Fierro Duarte assumed that there were serious corruption problems there: “We cannot hide the obvious,” he said on Tuesday. When journalists asked if they hadn’t seen what was happening in prison, he replied: “It’s not a matter of having seen or not having seen.” And he blamed those responsible for the prison disaster.
There are 3,901 inmates in Cereso 3, far exceeding the population the prison can support. Now there will be more space as 30 fled and another seven died in the rebellion. The point is that while some are overcrowded, others live like royalty. And this is happening in other prisons in Mexico too. Just a few days ago, relatives of prisoners gathered in Mexico City to demand the transfer of Abigael González Valencia to another prison. El Cuini, El Mencho’s brother-in-law, who enjoys as many privileges as his blackmail allows him, denounced those affected. El Cuini is in Santa Martha Acatitla Prison.
Even during Corral’s tenure, it was known that the violence on the streets of Ciudad Juárez “was carried out out of prison, that there were cell phones for it”. The former governor says they launched a major operation to put an end to it but there have been leaks and the criminal group’s response is “virulent”. “City security offices were shot at, trucks were set on fire, there were executions. It didn’t get the desired result,” he confirms, but they then decided to build a high-security module in Cereso 3, which cost about 40 million pesos. “It’s a four-level building with 450 square meters of construction area, surrounded by perimeter isolation mesh, cell monitoring, door and lock automation, cameras. It can accommodate 46 occupants,” explains Corral. And he affirms that when he transferred power with Governor Campos, he asked to be warned that he had “an important asset there to transfer criminals”. Corral accuses the governor of presenting this project as her own in her first government report. “It was never used, criminals didn’t let them use it,” says the former governor.
Whether or not there are prisoners in these cells is difficult to know. “Journalists are not allowed in prisons,” says Rocío Gallegos, editor-in-chief of La Verdad, in Ciudad Juárez. “Criminals defy the police, the political authorities. We already saw it in the riots in August, when it was said that the then director of Cereso had resigned and investigations were being launched. The same as now. But there were no consequences and no transparency. That was an announced escape,” he claims. It is well known that the orders come from the jail, because that’s what the criminals say when they’re stopped in the street. And it is known that the capos enjoy “different” conditions from other cells, because from time to time it comes to light, as this time with reports from the Sedena.
The big criminals control the smaller prisons and maybe the FBI too. Máynez Grijalva does not know anything about the security module in Cereso 3, but does not rule out that the occupants refuse to be transferred there. “Sometimes they put them in, take the picture and then take them out again.” There is no force that can fight the narco-state, “which it is, even if they don’t want to admit it. The fight against violence is a farce, there are laws but they are useless. When money laundering is attacked, they take the political class under their feet,” says the criminologist.
Ciudad Juárez is a border city, just a line on the map separating Mexico from the United States, where guns come in and drugs, migration, prostitution and trafficking in women, the world’s most lucrative businesses, leave. There is money for everyone. The criminologist believes the fugitives won’t get very far because they can’t go to the United States or travel through various Mexican territories without fighting with other groups. “That way they can be more easily recaptured.” Then they go back to prison, turn on the TV, do their drugs, and party with singers. Cell phones will issue orders from behind bars and the waters will get back on track for a while.
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