Victor Manuel Ponce in a file image. With kind approval
On March 13, 2013, 75 members of the Ponce family fled Estación Conchos — a town of just 1,600 people in Saucillo Municipality, Chihuahua — to save their lives. Sigifredo Ponce had been murdered a few days earlier. It was the family’s third murder in three years. Two of his nephews, brothers Gerardo and Jonathan, had previously died. The family fled. Ten years later, they were gripped by violence again.
The ranch of Víctor Manuel Ponce, the eighth of the brothers, was abandoned. On the day his brother Sigifredo was killed, the killers also murdered four workers. The white facade of his supermarket was stained with soot from a fire and riddled with large caliber bullets. The family that had founded this town in the desert in the early 1930s left in a caravan that night and after a few months scattered all over the country.
Víctor Manuel Ponce, 57, had settled in Huejúcar, Jalisco, after trying his luck in Aguascalientes. Thanks to bank loans, he had managed to set up his ranch and enter the cattle trade. His son Víctor Manuel, El Gordo, had returned from the United States to help with his business, and his daughter Dinorah had married a local boy last December. The family began to recover from exile. But on May 23, Víctor Manuel Ponce disappeared.
He had chosen Huejúcar because he thought it was “a good place after witnessing terrible violence”. Since then, there have been talk of organized crime incursions into livestock farming, but in August 2022 the rumors turned to threats. Members of the “maña,” as the area’s armed groups are known, called the ranchers together to tell them they would take over the business and that they would be charged a fee equal to at least half of each individual’s profits The calf was sold to the United States – and few, including Ponce, were able to collect the cattle for sale outside of Jalisco.
“They asked my father for two million pesos. They told him, “If you don’t pay us, we’ll kill you,” his daughter Anais Ponce said. Víctor Manuel paid for the right to the apartment, believing that this would save his life. She later reported the blackmail and threats to the prosecutor’s office and appealed to the Executive Commission for the Assistance to Victims (CEAV) because she feared for her safety and that of her family. His plan was to sell everything, go out of business and leave Jalisco so as not to repeat the same story as in Chihuahua.
“I think he endangered my uncle who turned himself in to the prosecutor,” said Paola Delgado, Dora Ponce’s daughter and the attorney who handled all the legal action for her family and requested protections for her uncle. “He didn’t feel death. He said, “The most that can happen is that one day they empty my ranch and burn it down.”
They last saw Víctor Manuel Ponce with his employee Luis Fernando García at his cattle station. When their family searched for them in the pens, they saw their truck parked and found their hats on the ground, as well as shirt buttons and signs saying they had been dragged away. Security video from the neighboring hardware store shows two trucks driving in at full speed and driving away five minutes later.
“We thought that maybe they would go back to my dad because when they called him to the meetings where they would pull their ears and tell them, ‘You either do it or you do it,’ it was hours before they came back. I didn’t have any hope because they kidnapped him by force, didn’t I?” says Anais Ponce. According to the family, on the same day as the disappearance, members of “la maña”, in cooperation with local authorities, went to the ranch and took between 120 and 150 head of cattle. They also held Dinorah Ponce for hours and threatened her not to start a search.
On June 14, Anais Ponce recorded a video denouncing her father’s disappearance. All he hoped for was to get his body back. “Although they took what they wanted, they didn’t give it back to us. I ask that this video goes viral, that it reaches the highest authorities, that it reaches all the news, and most importantly that it reaches the boss of the boss of the boss of the person who has my father. Please go back to my father and go back to Luis Fernando. The next morning they found their bodies in Zacatecas.
The Ponce family’s history of violence began in 2010 with the kidnapping of El Gordo, Victor Manuel’s eldest son. In Saucillo, the family had prospered from raising cattle and exporting to the United States, opening nine supermarkets, planting huge walnut trees, and meeting every Sunday to cook roasts. Estación Conchos is part of one of the drug routes into the United States and there have always been marijuana plantations in the neighboring mountains, but more than 20 years ago, families began to get caught up in crime.
In a 2018 interview, Víctor Manuel Ponce explained that he believes all of this violence stems from doing business with the wrong person. A rancher linked to the crime borrowed about $50,000 from him and told him he would pay back with about 200 head of cattle. Over time, in return, he received only a cage with stolen cattle. When he protested, a hitman threatened him with a gun to silence him. For the next year and a half, the Ponces made a living by checking the rear-view mirrors of their trucks. Until they tried again in 2013 to kidnap El Gordo and killed his cousin Jonathan. Víctor began talking to the authorities: he pointed out the points that everyone in the city knew applied to the storage and sale of drugs. In February, Víctor Ponce left town, believing it would leave the rest of the family alone. Three weeks later they killed Sigifredo.
A decade later, Víctor Manuel Ponce found himself in a similar situation, in a different state, in front of a different criminal group, with less family around him, weary and weary of seeking justice. He complained about impunity, the non-application of the Victims’ Act and the fact that the investigation had not found any culprits despite the complaints. “I believe in divine justice, but human justice doesn’t exist here in Mexico,” he said in the 2018 interview.
To date, no member of the Ponce family has received justice. The Mexican Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, which handled the case, publicly condemned the death of Víctor Manuel Ponce: “The state is responsible for its inaction in these events that began ten years ago.” His lawyers stated that the Family have at least six screenings in Chihuahua, three in Jalisco and one in Zacatecas. None have been resolved. There were also dozens of Amparo lawsuits, a national human rights recommendation, comprehensive care procedures and complaints before the CEAV.
“Why my father? If he wasn’t a murderer, he wasn’t a kidnapper, he wasn’t a drug dealer… Yes, he had a country character, he was tough, he was brave, but why?” Anais wondered.
Days after her father’s death, her daughter recalled the road trips they took as a family and how they always sang Víctor Manuel Ponce’s favorite songs along the way, like “Dust in the Air” from “Little Venice” or ” Coward of the County” by Kenny Rogers. She interprets the text of the latter as a message:
“Promise me, my son, not to do the things I have done
Avoid trouble if you can
Now, just turning the other cheek doesn’t mean you’re weak
I hope you are old enough to understand
Son, you don’t have to fight to be a man.
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