She would hunt them down, one by one, until the day she died. 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 suspect killed a woman near Orlando on Wednesday morning, then returned later in the day and killed a 9-year-old girl and a journalist who was covering the original shooting, the authorities said. The team of reporters discovered that law enforcement authorities in Mexico, the United States and Spain had opened inquiries into allegations that Herrera colluded with leaders of the Zeta cartel while he was governor and took money from them for his campaign, as well as allegations that he was involved in money laundering while later serving in a diplomatic post in Barcelona. Instead of answers, the family received threats, anonymous calls and messages warning them to stop the search. It was very clear that the elements of torture had been carried out by the state government, by local authorities, she said. . Millan-Vasquez was found guilty last July of murder, violence, drug and weapons trafficking, and employing minors in a drug crime - a total of 10 counts. But they felt they had nothing to lose. But by then, the cousins were nowhere to be found. By Theodore Shoebat A Mexican drug cartel in Apatzingan brutally tortured and murdered a young woman in her twenties and left her corpse on the street. 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. After tracing the fake Facebook account, the police discovered what Mrs. Garza had long suspected that several of her cousins were involved in organized crime and had teamed up with local cartel members to extort the family. Then, there was another 911 call, Sheriff Mina said. Violence akin to terrorism including beheadings, dismemberments and hangings, with bodies displayed as warnings pervaded the lives of its 8million residents. 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. It is unclear whether the gunman knew that the reporter and photographer in the vehicle were journalists. Her public campaign threatened more than just a few kidnappers. The Zetas called Herrera Zeta Number One because he was the one who ran the state, former FBI special agent Arturo Fontes, who spent 28 years on Mexican and Colombian drug and money-laundering cases, said in an interview. 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 . Perhaps she had even been watching the ranch in case the police came. She knew the florist had sold flowers on the street before joining the Zeta cartel and getting involved in her daughters kidnapping. Bullet holes pockmarked the outer walls of the adobe house, remnants of a gunfight months earlier. The first thing he asked was whether his two little sisters were safe. Mrs. Rodrguez went to Aldama, his small hometown of about 13,000 people, and paid a visit to his grandmother. Photos of a woman who was allegedly dismembered by drug traffickers of the Elite Group of the Jalisco Nueva Generacin Cartel (CJNG) were disseminated on social networks . 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. She invented excuses to meet their families, unsuspecting grandmothers and cousins who gave her details, however small. Female reporters and their family members have been murdered in the drug war for writing anti-cartel articles for newspapers or posting messages on the internet. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnezs death was brutal. 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. Frightened colleagues sometimes tried to warn her off investigations. Feb. 2022: Mexican TV host found dead in string of journalist killings. Perhaps softened by her kindness, Cristian told them everything. Duarte, had used public funds to purchase fake chemotherapy medication for children. Homicide January 16 Drive-by shooter empties shotgun at British funeral mourners; girls, 7 and 12, among six wounded A gunman fired multiple shotgun rounds into a gathered crowd of funeral mourners. the woman would have been killed in retaliation after the United Cartels did the same with a CJNG hit man identified as La Guadaa. And the searches for Luciano had turned up nothing. She is the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland. Lucianos family had no one. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. 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. Through the static, she heard someone call him by name: Sama. She urinated in cups and ran her car battery down listening to the radio in the dark. A month before she was killed, Mrs. Rodrguez broke her foot chasing down one of the last targets on her list, a young woman who had left town and begun working as a live-in nanny for a family in Ciudad Victoria. The authorities pledged to capture her killers. And I wouldnt kill anyone because Im already dying bit by bit since I have HIV., Coq described Silva as the perfect scapegoat.. In Plain Sight: Van Zeller says one of the most surprising things about her work, particularly on Trafficked, was that she was able to find underground markets close to home. After a week, he stopped answering the phone. It was not an accident, she said. As a private lawyer, he was also representing the LeBaron family, a family with dual US-Mexico citizenship that lost nine. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Networks Antonio Baquero in Barcelona and Procesos Jess Esquivel and The Posts Alice Crites and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report. Armed men forced their way into her pickup truck and took off, with her in it. Escobar cheated with . Mrs.Rodrguezs son, Luis, at the ranch where the remains of his sister, Karen, were found. Halfway through the year, Adame's death brings to seven the 2017 toll of slain press . The Zetas, once an armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, had been warring with their one-time bosses for years. When she returned, the officer asked her what she had been thinking. Two Mexican intelligence officials said in phone interviews that Martnezs homicide may be connected to the hackers known as Anonymous in Mexico. Off the motorways, dirt roads in the scrubland provide a web of smuggling routes ideal for traffickers. It was an indicator that she was getting close and that the response from drug cartels had to be certain and definitive.. She was murdered by Los Pepes for being "Pablo's whore" in 1993. The intelligence officials said one of those kidnapped disclosed that the group had contacted Martnez. LEFT: Martnez in an undated photo. Led. At least, until the following year, when rampant abductions of bus passengers led to the unearthing of nearly 200 bodies dumped in mass graves along San Fernandos peripheries. Duartes public security secretary, Arturo Bermdez, was charged with heading a death squad that disappeared at least 15 people. Bermdez has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending. Pablo Escobar died in a rooftop shootout in Medellin on Dec. 2, 1993. Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues. The shooting stunned some of the local reporters who were also on the scene that day, as well as some of their colleagues, who expressed disbelief on Twitter that journalists had been attacked while doing their jobs. Borbolla had other problems with the crime investigation, which was supposed to be done jointly with state authorities. As the funeral crowd dispersed, Luis and Azalea went to their mothers grave, a church-like structure lined with cypress trees. Scarred by a decade of violence, a brutal war between cartel factions, the slaughter of 72 migrants and the killing of Mrs. Rodrguez, San Fernando grew quiet for a time, as if spent by its own tragic history. Gunmen killed nine people in an attack on a house in central Mexico, in the latest outbreak of violence linked to suspected drug gangs, authorities said Wednesday. The killers covered the site with trash to throw off anyone searching. At the burial site, as a crowd surrounded the rectangular pit, he stood to the side, weeping. She quoted people saying they knew Herrera had given the orders. She sought to prove the traffickers and their accomplices had executed hundreds of people: Teenage dealers and entire families. Benjamin LeBaron, an anti-crime activist who founded neighborhood patrols against cartels, was killed in 2009. [The sniper rifles flowing to Mexican cartels show a decade of U.S. failure]. The restaurant where Mrs. Rodrguez met with a cartel member in San Fernando. While many fled to escape the violence, others stuck it out because they had built a life in San Fernando and would not abandon it for the sins of others. Cartel violence has long scarred San . Karen was buried there, too, beside her mother. Townspeople, long accustomed to looking away in silence, watched the funeral procession crawl through the streets, slow enough for the hundreds of mourners on foot to keep up. By the next morning, the kidnappers stopped answering their phones and the family knew Luciano was not coming home. He had one last customer, a young, slender man browsing hats. Martnezs home was mostly undisturbed, and items of value remained little gold earrings on the dresser, her purse, her phones, a printer, kitchen appliances. In 2017, remains of 250 people were unearthed in Veracruz. Mass graves were so common that finding fewer than 20 remains at a time barely merited a headline. As Mrs. Rodrguez sat outside the interrogation room, the teenager asked whether he could see his mother. I want to say that they hit me on the back and I feel pain, Silva said in a statement provided by his attorney, Diana Coq Toscanini. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnez's death was brutal. The cemetery emptied, but they stayed, clinging to the moment. Everyone posts photos on social media, even small-time gangsters. She was born in a small town in Veracruz, one of 11 children. LEFT: Soldiers and police block off an area in Veracruz where 35 bodies were dumped on a roadway in September 2011. They were both in critical condition on Wednesday night. Someone wanted to stop the news reports about the executions. We urge all reporters in the field to take extra precaution and redouble efforts to work safely., Spectrum News on Thursday described Mr. Lyons, 24, as a motivated and talented professional who was living his dream in Orlando.. We must rid ourselves of the fear to stand up and speak out.. One morning, a few weeks after the last payment, she came downstairs and told Azalea that she knew Karen was never coming back, that she was most likely dead. With little to lose, Mrs. Rodrguez asked for a meeting with members of the local cartel, the Zetas, and to her surprise, they agreed. The parents speeches brought tears to the crowd, to Luis and his sister Azalea in particular. I very much regret each death and each person who receives some mistreatment. Six months after the investigation was launched, Borbolla, along with the Mexican public, learned via a television news conference that the state prosecutor had successfully cleared up the murder of Regina Martnez.. This also deprives real businesses of business., Herrera, now 71, has always denied the allegations. Within a few months, it arrested two of the culprits, and killed another in a gunfight. Herrera belongs to the previous generation of governors, when accountability institutions lacked political power, said Alberto Olvera, a sociologist at the University of Veracruz. And then, by pure chance, Sama turned up. Even young women who attended their sex parties. Herrera did not respond to emails to his office. Her articles had an outsize impact. A female cartel boss known as "La Doa" has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in the US after her two sons were murdered in killings that could have been a warning not to cooperate with US. In Washington, the White House reacted Wednesday night to the news that journalists were among the victims in the latest spate of gun violence. Half of them were already in prison, not because the authorities had cracked the case, but because she had pursued them on her own, with a meticulous abandon. Luis and Azalea sat for a while as the suns bite softened, reminiscing in a way they rarely allowed themselves to do anymore. The killing came just a day after Lpez Esquivel, 21, a female member of the Jalisco cartel, died during a showdown with Mexican cops in La Bocanda. 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. She also pointed to evidence that the man convicted in Martnezs killing was tortured by Veracruz police and falsely confessed to the crime. It is much more attractive to present Chapo Guzmn as the great mastermind of organized crime that controls the country than to assume responsibility for the insecurity or to investigate those who have allowed the growth of organized crime, Jorge Rebolledo Flores, a government and business security consultant with a decade of experience in Veracruz, said in an interview, referring to the infamous Sinaloa crime boss Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn. 1. The details and information gathered by this woman, working all alone, were incredible., She had gone to every single level of government and they had slammed the door in her face, he recalled. The relatives took precautions, at times monitoring their children with an intensity that bordered on surveillance. The family followed every instruction to the letter. It has been a relentless attack against journalists, said Roberta S. Jacobson, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2016 to 2018. They were forced out of the field of play. It was a witchs brew, said Seeley, who now runs Constos Global Risk Management. In June 2011, the deputy editor of the largest newspaper in the state, Notiver, was shot dead in his home along with his wife and son. They traversed the vast expanses of San Fernandos arid edges, but no matter how far they searched, they could never cover it all. Indian . It was a company to build highways Hes still a child, no matter what he did, and I am still a mother, Mrs. Rodrguez said, according to her friend, Idalia Saldivar Villavicencio, who was with her at the interrogation. She parked on the street and lumbered out of the car, moving slowly because of her injury. In Mexico, politicians rely on narcos for campaign funds. The Veracruz government said the 35 people were Zetas and the perpetrators were from the warring Gulf Cartel. Never in my career had I seen such an altered crime scene. Touched, Mrs. Rodrguez entered the room and gave the teenager her lunch, a piece of fried chicken, then went to buy him a Coke. The next year, 168. 1. nycboots 3 days ago. She had eaten there with Azalea only two days after Karens kidnapping. He was frightened during questioning. Under Duarte, the Zetas lost their monopoly on power in the state, and other cartels moved in, according to interviews and press accounts at the time. She became a social media sleuth, spending countless hours trawling Karens Facebook profile, looking for clues. One official claimed that investigators had managed to triangulate the location based on cellphone tower pings. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. She stopped every few minutes to catch her breath and study the photo of her next target: the florist. Are they waiting for them to kill us too?. If it was only a matter of time. Luis arrived late to the funeral, after the procession had already made its way down streets lined with residents watching little Lucianos casket en route to the cemetery. Forensic agents claimed that Karen was not among the dozens of bodies they had identified at the ranch. Graphics by Daniela Santamaria. Journalist Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, who was killed by members of a drug cartel for threatening to expose them. In August of this year, the family went to Mexico City to pressure the government. A portrait of MiriamRodrguez hanging on the wall of her home, now owned by her husband. When he finally did, some was too damaged to analyze. Crime scene where El Diario Newspaper Crime Reporter Armando Rodriquez was murdered outside his home while warming up his car. Colorado-Cessa was ultimately convicted in a scheme involving the purchase of racehorses. It is being published by Forbidden Stories and its partners beginning today. Herrera was paid millions of dollars through liaisons to the cartels to let them operate with impunity., Rebolledo, the Veracruz security consultant, said: He was the boss of bosses. His father, also Luciano, owned a thriving construction materials store. Government contracts offer cartels and corrupt officials a way to help one another prosper, Fontes said. As he drove back to San Fernando, the kidnappers called. Luis obsessed over who they were. ,federal,local police are sometimes paid to allow it or they try to stop them and be killed themselves or their family killed. At 10:21 p.m., she headed home; she was once again living with her husband in the small, orange house where Karen once stayed. In March of 2017, nearly two dozen prisoners escaped the penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria, where Mrs. Rodrguezs efforts had put her daughters killers. She jammed her handgun into his back. The nine American women and children killed in northern Mexico were victims of a territorial dispute between an arm of the Sinaloa Cartel and a rival gang, officials said on Wednesday, and may . In 2015, Virginia reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot and killed during their live TV broadcast for CBS affiliate WDBJ7. During the 16 months Martnez was alive under Duartes tenure, she chronicled an escalation in violence, with mutilated bodies dumped in public almost weekly. In the years after Martnezs death, the mothers of the disappeared across Mexico formed collectives to demand that authorities find the bodies of their missing loved ones. (Flix Mrquez/AP) RIGHT: Relatives try to identify their missing loved ones at the morgue in Cosamaloapan, Veracruz, after more than two dozen bodies were found in a mass grave in 2014. His mother, Anabel Garza, charismatic and fearless, became a spokeswoman for the staggering number of missing people in Mexico more than 70,000 nationwide and the unrelenting tide of loss in a country where homicides have nearly doubled in the last five years alone. Mexican marines had killed six of the accomplices, Cristian said in his statement. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he is now permanently deploying National Guard troops to Cancun in a bid to curb the rise in crime. Her death gave shape to the impunity that twists everyday life in Mexico, and the government scrambled to react. We arent looking for a corpse, Luis recalled Anabel saying. On the bridge, she scoured the vendors for flower carts, but that day he was selling sunglasses instead. On February 15, 2023, Vctor Hugo Lpez Ramrez, a criminal lawyer from Mexico City, was gunned down at a taco stand in the Zona Rio neighborhood of Tijuana. 1 min read. The Client Who Got Him Killed. and he used them to keep order in some regions of the state., In 2012, after Martnezs death, Herreras name also surfaced in sworn testimony at the U.S. money-laundering trial of Veracruz oilman Francisco Colorado-Cessa in U.S. District Court in Austin. One, Cristian Jose Zapata Gonzalez, was barely 18 when the police grabbed him, young even by cartel standards. The city placed a bronze plaque honoring her in the central plaza. Like everyone else in the city, Lucianos relatives knew the story of Karens kidnapping and Mrs. Rodrguezs tragic heroism. When he finally did, she followed the couple home and marked their address. Where was his compassion when they killed my daughter? her family said she had replied. Some members left to form their own groups. insider. The woman, who started being a hit woman aged 15 said killed pregnant women. It was Sept. 15, 2014, the day on which Mexican independence is celebrated. In the first shooting on Wednesday, the suspect fatally shot Ms. Augustin around 11 a.m. as she was in the car with the suspects cousin, Sheriff Mina said, adding that it was unclear whether the suspect knew the victim personally. The cartel never had intended to keep him, and after they let him go Mrs. Rodrguez mined his memory for everything he had heard or seen. They did that, but I didnt see who, since I was blindfolded. As the local economy struggled, Duarte was hiding the states financial crisis, she wrote. A man who fatally shot a 38-year-old woman on Wednesday morning in Orange County, Fla., returned to the scene later in the day and went on a shooting spree, the authorities said, killing a 24-year-old TV news reporter who had been covering the original homicide and a 9-year-old at a nearby home. For a city of about 60,000, San Fernando bears an infamy out of proportion to its size, a misfortune born of geography. 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 . About five hours later, several 911 calls came in from the site of the first shooting. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. Recently, she has investigated Russian disinformation operations, censorship around the world, the massive national security state, CIA operations and veterans issues. She sat down with a slender young man at El Junior, a restaurant in town. The gunman, a former reporter for the TV station . In recent interviews, Borbolla provided new details about her investigation. Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit group based in Paris that is dedicated to continuing the work of journalists silenced by homicide, organized the effort. She was a police officer in Veracruz, Mexico. I want to thank you for being the perfect son, for bringing joy to all of us every day you were here, he said. Every noise from the street startled them. Their sister had died, their mother, too, even their mothers friend, Ms. Saldivar Villavicencio, who recently had died of Covid-19. De Dinechin, of Forbidden Stories, and Espinosa, of Proceso, reported from Mexico. Dead.. The lifeless body of the young woman had signs of torture and was found with gunshot wounds Sunday morning. We learn how to do that in the first year of criminal studies and it didnt happen only once.. Herreras finances were of particular interest to her. The local government could connect to peoples phones and know at any moment what they were up to, one of the officials said in an interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. With a heavy sigh, the elderly woman told her that the boy had always been trouble, but at least now he was going to church. Since then, at least 39 more journalists have been murdered. The family doubted it would bring Karen home, but they sent the money anyway. But Karen stayed, to finish school and help run her moms small cowboy apparel shop, Rodeo Boots. Someone broke in through the metal door from her beloved garden patio, the tiny patch of tranquility that kept her from . People took heart at her fight, and found indignation in her death. Signs were displayed around San Fernando during the long search for Luciano Leal Garza, who was lured to a park and abducted in San Fernando. 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. Right now, what we are asking for, and what Miriam asked for a number of times, is security, said Lucianos father. In all, she was instrumental in taking down 10 people, a mad campaign for justice that made her famous, but vulnerable. But even he had learned the lesson his mothers murder had been meant to impart: only push so far for justice. The four other parts can be found at forbiddenstories.org. You Might Be Interested In. Just before her killing, Martnez had begun visiting pauper cemeteries in Veracruz to compare the number of bodies buried to official death records. They stripped their hopes to something far more basic the return of their son. Her family was not satisfied, but she didnt let that stop her. When they arrested him in the central plaza, Sama kicked and screamed, claiming he had a heart condition. By Eduardo Medina,April Rubin and Christine Chung. He outlawed crime reporting on social media an action that was quickly overturned in court. But Ms. Betancourt played dumb, which Mrs. Rodrguez had thought was odd. One asked Mrs. Rodrguez for mercy. Martnez was considered by her peers to be the leader of a group of five journalists whose reputations were above reproach. And last night my chest was in pain. She called herself The Devil and . The child. They have hired gravediggers and forensic experts. . 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. Reporter Dylan Lyons and a photographer were on scene reporting sometime around 4:00 p.m. when they were shot while reporting on a homicide of a woman in her twenties, which occurred at approximately 11:00 a.m., WCJB noted. On Thursday, the Sheriffs Office released the names of the victims: Dylan Lyons, 24, Nathacha Augustin, 38, and Tyonna Major, 9. Now she finally had one a widow called to tell her that he was peddling flowers on the border. They spent weeks baiting Luciano with a false Facebook account of a young girl. And with every failed bid to reclaim Karen, she fell further into despair. The cartel has unlimited resources to have all weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles, military gear . She cut her hair and dyed it bright red so Sama would not recognize her. Even before her death, Herrera was facing mounting allegations. A colleague of Martnez said that she had calculated that the number of dead had increased tenfold in Veracruz between 2000 and 2012, a toll not reflected in official records. . In 2015, Pea Nieto gave Herrera a consul position in Barcelona even though he had no diplomatic experience. Anyone can read what you share. 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. The day after, the kidnappers said they wanted more. This happened to be a random act of violence that were still trying to figure out why this happened, he said, adding that body camera video footage would be released later Thursday. She was never able to find the mysterious witness. At least, not in the way they had hoped. Authorities discovered Vanessa Torres Galn's mutilated body, which bore signs of torture. Her colleagues were right to be worried. Dec. 6, 2020. They called on friends and citizens to march with them, to demand the return of little Luciano. A white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped prison quietly pulled up behind her, according to the police report. What the local press did not want to publish was published through Regina Martnez, said Jorge Carrasco, Procesos editor in chief. She said state police badly damaged the fingerprints they found at the crime scene with smears and excess dusting powder. A day after Coronel Aispuro's court appearance, Jessica Oseguera, the 34-year-old daughter of El Chapo's rival cartel boss, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was sentenced to two and a half years in. She wrote everything down and stuffed it into her black computer bag, building her investigation and tracking them down, one by one. Women Are Being Killed With Impunity in Mexico - YouTube 0:00 / 14:49 Sign in to confirm your age This video may be inappropriate for some users. Azalea watched as her mothers sadness hardened into resolve and her hope gave way to revenge. Enrique Pea Nieto, who once described Herrera as his best friend, ran and won the presidency instead. Duarte had none of Herreras political charm. 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. Some 50 young women disappeared over a three-day period after attending parties with Zetas and local officials, according to media accounts. Fontes, who now runs a security company, Fontes International Solutions, said the problem is endemic to Mexico.

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