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Published September 29, 2023, 6:05 p.m. ET
According to local reports, the cartel responsible for the murder of six innocent teenagers in Mexico filmed them being led to their deaths and sent the footage to their parents.
The video shows an armed cartel member wearing a skull mask leading the teenagers, ages 14 to 18, who wear black hoods over their faces that block their view and whose hands are tied behind their backs.
Gangsters armed with guns follow the barefoot hostages as they climb a mountainside in Zacatecas state, central Mexico.
Of the seven teenagers, six were killed and a seventh was beaten to a pulp but survived, Mexican authorities said.
In the video, part of which was shown on local news channel Milenio TV, a “narcocorrido” can be heard, a type of Mexican folk song that describes the gangsters’ exploits
“Death is in their eyes,” the text proclaims.
The teenagers, identified as friends and cousins by the Mexican edition of the Spanish-language newspaper El País, had been enjoying a family weekend at a ranch near the town of Malpaso when several vehicles loaded with armed men crashed in at 4 a.m. Sunday The house was broken into and the boys were kidnapped.
Their bodies were found days later in a remote area with no roads leading to them.
According to local reports, the cartel responsible for the murder of six innocent teenagers in Mexico filmed them being led to their deaths and sent the footage to their parents
The sole survivor, Sergio Yobani Acevedo, lies unconscious in the hospital and has not been able to speak to investigators, according to Milenio TV.
The parents of the murdered teenagers released the footage to the media to counter claims by Mexican officials who had denied that the minors had been kidnapped.
The reason for the kidnappings and killings is unclear and they have shocked the country, leading many to believe that ruthless cartels are in charge in the region, according to El Pais.
Although 6,500 members of the Mexican Army, National Guard and Federal Minister of Public Security are stationed in the state, a wave of violence has gripped Zacatecas.
At least six cartels are fighting for control of the state, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel and the Northeast Cartel.
Gangsters armed with guns follow the barefoot hostages as they climb a mountainside in Zacatecas state, central Mexico. Images supplied
Smaller criminal groups also operate there and take orders from the gangsters.
“These are spaces of emptiness, there is a lack of rule of law, there is a lack of services… in these spaces…” [criminal] Groups come to hide,” Miguel Moctezuma of the Global Security Program at Oxford University told El Pais.
“And they don’t just live there: They position themselves in that population as providers and administrators of justice. They sponsor things.”
Even in a country where cartels are part of everyday life, many Mexicans believe the killings are a sign that things are beyond the government’s control.
“18 years after the start of the ‘War on Narcos,’ we are a country where there are an average of 85 to 93 painful murders per day,” said Grupo Formula journalist Oscar Belman.
Belman offered three theories behind the teens’ massacre, saying cartel members may be trying to get revenge on rivals and mistakenly targeting the teens; a new form of group hostage-taking aimed at extorting money from families; or simply a new form of terror propagation.
“This shows that cartel violence in Zacatecas is uncontrolled. There really are no rights,” he added.
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