I want to end this. . She went to the authorities local, state and federal but none would help her. In 2011, the group announced it would begin releasing the names of cartel members and their accomplices in government, which it had obtained through hacking. She quoted people saying they knew Herrera had given the orders. The risk is asymmetric. She had been hunting him for a year, stalking him online, interrogating the criminals he worked with, even befriending unwitting relatives for tips on his whereabouts. It was Sept. 15, 2014, the day on which Mexican independence is celebrated. But the day after the news conference, Silva told a court magistrate that he was not guilty and that he had confessed only because he was being tortured. She said it matter-of-factly, as though describing her sleep. After that, the woman fled to Veracruz, where she drove a taxi while raising her young son. It was 2014, an especially grim time in San Fernando. People took heart at her fight, and found indignation in her death. 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. Living in San Fernando means accepting certain realities. Having confessed to the murders of at least five men, she revealed she enjoyed both drinking the warm blood of her victims and having sex with the dead bodies following the homicide. They spent weeks baiting Luciano with a false Facebook account of a young girl. Government contracts offer cartels and corrupt officials a way to help one another prosper, Fontes said. Graphics by Daniela Santamaria. But even he had learned the lesson his mothers murder had been meant to impart: only push so far for justice. 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. Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, was closing down his own shop in Ciudad Victoria to attend the festivities. Warning: CARTEL violence. 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. Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Mrs. Rodrguez picked through the debris left by the kidnappers: grisly stains on soiled tabletops, bones of varying sizes, some mere shards. The international collaboration was organized by Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit group based in Paris whose mission is to continue the reporting of murdered journalists. Duarte had none of Herreras political charm. 1 min read. Are they waiting for them to kill us too?. Additional charges were expected for the other shootings in Pine Hills, about five miles west of Orlando, said the Orange County sheriff, John Mina, who said at a news conference on Thursday that he was 100 percent confident the gunman would be charged with homicide for the murders of Mr. Lyons and Ms. Major. Luis said he had to sneak onto the street to give her a jump. His father, also Luciano, owned a thriving construction materials store. She stopped every few minutes to catch her breath and study the photo of her next target: the florist. However, the International Federation of Journalists, which also counts media workers, said that six . At 17, he was convicted for two murders and sentenced to 70 years in a Texas states prison . Others interviewed current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials in the United States, Mexico and Spain, former senior U.S. diplomats and a dozen experts on cartels, Veracruz and Mexican politics. Naturally, Mrs. Rodrguez began attending service. But the kidnappers knew exactly how to strike. In recent interviews, Borbolla provided new details about her investigation. The day after, the kidnappers said they wanted more. The "execution" of six men and . Within a few months, it arrested two of the culprits, and killed another in a gunfight. Proceso documented that he owned a private jet and 22 cars, including an armored vehicle, as well as ranches, a hotel and a yacht. The Veracruz government said the 35 people were Zetas and the perpetrators were from the warring Gulf Cartel. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. La Voz is one such example of this, as the newspaper is not real . Some of the culprits were dead, others in jail. Borbolla had other problems with the crime investigation, which was supposed to be done jointly with state authorities. A murder in Veracruz: Slain journalists story a portrait of a violent, corrupt era in Mexico. A mother of two sons killed by fentanyl gave emotional testimony Tuesday at the House Homeland Security hearing on the border crisis. In 2015, Proceso photographer Rubn Espinosa, who had been physically harassed and verbally threatened for taking photos of crime scenes, finally fled to the safety of Mexico City, only to be tracked there and killed by assassins, his colleagues believe. Police denied his claims, but Borbolla said she believes Silva. Duarte was taking money from everyone, said Kirk Seeley, a former DEA special agent and supervisor with 16 years of experience, much of it investigating drug crimes in Mexico. The reports led to a government investigation that eventually stalled. At around 4 p.m., Mr. Moses returned to the site and shot two Spectrum News 13 journalists who were in a vehicle near the homicide scene, Sheriff Mina said. Neither matched anyone in the countrys crime databases. MEXICO CITY When Gildo . To help her hunt down the people who took her daughter it was the greatest privilege of my career.. Benjamin LeBaron, an anti-crime activist who founded neighborhood patrols against cartels, was killed in 2009. A man riding in a car with his cousin shot and killed another passenger then returned to the same neighborhood near Orlando hours later and shot four more people, killing a journalist covering. You have all taught my family that together we can fight back, she said. She told her daughter that she would not rest until she found the people who had taken Karen. In September, when the state police detained a cartel leader in San Fernando, he refused to cooperate. 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. If it was only a matter of time. Feb. 2022: Mexican TV host found dead in string of journalist killings. When she finally found him, she got too excited, and too close. Four days after local police began investigating her killing, Borbolla, the federal prosecutor, arrived in Veracruz from Mexico City to do a parallel investigation for a new unit designed to probe crimes against journalists. His mother thanked everyone for having risked their own safety to help find her son. His grandfather, Luciano, ran a trucking business he started from scratch, and a prosperous cinder block factory. Bullet holes pockmarked the outer walls of the adobe house, remnants of a gunfight months earlier. He has not seen the questions, it is medically prohibited by his doctor.. She called herself The Devil and . LEFT: Martnez in an undated photo. The government said nothing about how it had found the grave site. A lot of Narcos: Mexico is based on truth and is a retelling of historical events, but not everything is actually what happened. Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, 36, could not help but see the parallels, and wept when he heard the news. His son, Javier, said via Twitter that his father was ill and unable to comment: My father has been in a hospital since April; this is a fact that you can easily corroborate; he suffered a stroke in April and has been in intensive care ever since. Duarte next to a Proceso headline reading Veracruz: State Without Law. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images), The United States took note of Martnezs homicide, too. Like everyone else in the city, Lucianos relatives knew the story of Karens kidnapping and Mrs. Rodrguezs tragic heroism. He was shot three times: in the leg, torso and fatally in his ear. No one slept. The cemetery emptied, but they stayed, clinging to the moment. But by then, the cousins were nowhere to be found. He then had to be subdued after becoming physical with detectives, Sheriff Mina said. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. During the 16 months Martnez was alive under Duartes tenure, she chronicled an escalation in violence, with mutilated bodies dumped in public almost weekly. Luis dropped what he was doing to take a closer look. Duartes public security secretary, Arturo Bermdez, was charged with heading a death squad that disappeared at least 15 people. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnez's death was brutal. After that, the trust seemed to be broken, and Luis went his own way. One morning, while stretched across the sofa, she discovered a Facebook photograph tagged with the name Sama. On Mothers Day, 2017, weeks after she had chased down one of her last targets, she was shot in front of her home and killed. Police officers patrolling a remote area, favored by cartel members to move undetected, outside Reynosa, Mexico. This is another tragic reminder that journalism is a dangerous business and that criminals and those that are the subject of reporting can become violent toward reporters who are doing their jobs, the organization said. Duarte was obsessed, she wrote in Proceso, with censoring the truth. He was frightened during questioning. Halle Berry has done it again: she's turned every head and made every jaw drop with a series of new bikini snapshots that show she's a confident superstar in every season. [The death of Mexican news in the age of drug cartels], The violence became news all over the world. Argumedo, who has never before spoken publicly about her investigation, said he remembers that the graves were so full that the bodies were overflowing., One co-worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for personal safety reasons, remembers telling her: Regina, be very careful. The next year, 168. Mr. Moses was taken to a hospital, where Sheriff Mina said he fought with hospital staff and was restrained, before being transported to the Sheriffs Office. Her stunning campaign recounted in case files, witness testimony, confessions from the criminals she tracked down and dozens of interviews with relatives, police officers, friends, officials and local residents changed San Fernando, for a while at least. Armed with a handgun, a fake ID card and disguises, Miriam Rodrguez was a one-woman detective squad, defying a system where criminal impunity often prevails. Mrs. Rodrguez, whose courage and determination to find her daughter offered a guiding light for the campaign to save Luciano years later, was also a warning of what awaited anyone who pushed too hard. Rhonita Maria Miller, 31, and four of her children - a 12-year-old son Howard Jr., his 10-year-old sister Krystal and 8-month-old twins Titus and Tiana - were found shot and burned in their. This is the first in a series of five articles, called "The Cartel Project," involving 60 journalists from 18 countries. Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels on the border line between the US and Mexico. Valeria Velez (?-1993) was a Colombian journalist who had a romantic relationship with Medellin Cartel boss Pablo Escobar from 1981 to 1991. The body of a woman was found nearby. She studied journalism in college and began her career in the early 1980s at a state-run television channel. It was an indicator that she was getting close and that the response from drug cartels had to be certain and definitive.. Martnez was one of the very few reporters who dared to refuse bribes or to ignore cartel threats aimed at censoring the news. 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. Borbolla is currently a prosecutor in a different part of the attorney generals office. Veracruz officials awarded lucrative government contracts to Colorado-Cessas cartel-linked construction company, and government officials received 10 to 16 percent from each contract, Hinojosa testified. 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. The killers covered the site with trash to throw off anyone searching. Mrs. Garza ignored the calls, as Mrs. Rodrguez had, but the family asked for security from the government. In all, she was instrumental in taking down 10 people, a mad campaign for justice that made her famous, but vulnerable. It is unclear whether the gunman knew that the reporter and photographer in the vehicle were journalists. There was never a single illicit penny in my campaign, he told the outlet Grupo Frmula in 2014. I am a man with clean hands.. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. In August of this year, the family went to Mexico City to pressure the government. Worried, she asked the government for protection. In 2015, Pea Nieto gave Herrera a consul position in Barcelona even though he had no diplomatic experience. It was headline news in Mexico, with calls for a thorough investigation. 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. ,federal,local police are sometimes paid to allow it or they try to stop them and be killed themselves or their family killed. mass graves along San Fernandos peripheries. The brutality is now spilling into popular tourist areas, particularly in the Quintana Roo state. 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. These horrific crimes prompted the 15 reporters who covered crime in Veracruz to flee town, according to an investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists. insider. CNN and The New York Times sent reporters. Sheriff Mina said on Thursday that the news vehicle didnt have any markings that stood out, adding that the suspect had passed by another news vehicle.. The cartel has unlimited resources to have all weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles, military gear . 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. to do drilling, to do cleanup, things like that anything that the government hired them to do, the accountant testified. It had just returned to power, 12 years after its seven decades of consecutive rule had been broken. Herreras presence set off alarms. He said they found a Glock 40 handgun that was still hot to the touch in the suspects pants. One of these five, who asked to remain anonymous for personal safety reasons, nicknamed this group the band of undesirables. Martnez and the other four journalists often coordinated to publish sensitive news simultaneously to cover up which one had done the work and to ensure that no one journalist was stranded at sea.. She is one of three people to testify in front of the Border Security and . On Thursday, the Sheriffs Office released the names of the victims: Dylan Lyons, 24, Nathacha Augustin, 38, and Tyonna Major, 9. A catalog of objects recovered by families of Veracruz journalists slain over the past decade. Not long after Luciano was taken, the kidnappers called his father and handed the phone to the teenager. Only her tape recorder and computer were gone. Weeks earlier, volunteers had passed the very spot and missed it. Standing beside him in the photo was a young woman, wearing the uniform of an ice cream shop two hours away in Ciudad Victoria. 34. She was never able to find the mysterious witness. Many of her peers believe he or Herrera was behind her homicide. Mexican video confirms death of female drug cartel gun woman January 13, 2020 MEXICO CITY (AP) Videos and photos of a woman killed in a drug gang shootout appear to confirm she was "La Catrina," a female member of a cartel hit squad that massacred 13 police officers in October. 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