Some of her colleagues fled Veracruz the day she died and have never returned. Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, was closing down his own shop in Ciudad Victoria to attend the festivities. They needed a bit more money, they said, just $500. And I wouldnt kill anyone because Im already dying bit by bit since I have HIV., Coq described Silva as the perfect scapegoat.. He lashed out at critics. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times. She is the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland. Her story offers a singular account of Mexicos deterioration by 2020 into an anguished nation, beset by cartel-corrupted government institutions and haunted by thousands of killings and disappearances. 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. Recently, she has investigated Russian disinformation operations, censorship around the world, the massive national security state, CIA operations and veterans issues. Three people, including a reporter and a 9-year-old girl, were shot and killed, and two others were shot and injured in a series of shootings in . The intelligence officials said one of those kidnapped disclosed that the group had contacted Martnez. 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.. The next year, 168. She would hunt them down, one by one, until the day she died. Laura Borbolla, a senior prosecutor in the Mexican Attorney Generals Office who investigated Martnezs homicide in 2012, said in interviews that state police and prosecutors made serious mistakes in their handling of the case. And then, by pure chance, Sama turned up. Luciano was kidnapped in one of the familys own trucks, just like Mrs. Rodrguezs daughter had been. Rebecca Kiessling lost her two sons, 20-year-old Caleb and 18-year-old Kyler, to fentanyl poisoning on July 29, 2020, after the boys ingested a "fake Percocet" in a hotel room. She says one scene of . When Borbolla transferred jobs in late 2015, she insisted Martnezs case remain open because we have those two fingerprints that implicated someone, and we didnt know who he was.. Herreras finances were of particular interest to her. If it was only a matter of time. Worried, she asked the government for protection. Veracruz receives partial information and even lies, she wrote in 2011. 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. You are taking our hearts with you.. Mr. Moses had walked into a brown house nearby and shot the 9-year-old girl and her mother, he said. Martnezs home was mostly undisturbed, and items of value remained little gold earrings on the dresser, her purse, her phones, a printer, kitchen appliances. 1. Many bars and restaurants had closed for fear of shootouts. They had a sort of buzzer for giving electric shocks, and they put it on my chest and gave me shocks. 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. She is one of three people to testify in front of the Border Security and . A lot of Narcos: Mexico is based on truth and is a retelling of historical events, but not everything is actually what happened. 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. But Karen stayed, to finish school and help run her moms small cowboy apparel shop, Rodeo Boots. Eventually, she found a federal policeman willing to assist. Some of the culprits were dead, others in jail. (Flix Mrquez/AP). The Barcelona City Council and Catalonian police launched confidential inquiries looking at Herreras links to people in Barcelona with their own legal problems, according to documents and interviews. Instead of answers, the family received threats, anonymous calls and messages warning them to stop the search. Under Duarte, now 47, corruption and violence increased dramatically. They drove her to the family home, where Karen lived during the week while Mrs. Rodrguez, who also worked as a nanny in Texas, was away. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnezs death was brutal. Rodrguez said the inquiries ended when Herrera, after 14 months, rushed home to Veracruz to answer allegations in a lawsuit that he and his successor, then-Gov. to do drilling, to do cleanup, things like that anything that the government hired them to do, the accountant testified. Halfway through the year, Adame's death brings to seven the 2017 toll of slain press . Miroslava Breach, 54, was shot eight times in her car while pulling out of her driveway to take one of her children to school. She invented excuses to meet their families, unsuspecting grandmothers and cousins who gave her details, however small. Borbolla said she believed Enoc Maldonado Caraza, chief of the Veracruz Investigative Agency, delayed handing over other evidence. Jesse Walden, the News 13 photographer who was shot, remains hospitalized but is speaking to detectives, Sheriff Mina said. 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. 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. The now-abandoned market where Mrs.Rodrguez had a cowboy apparel shop. Sure enough, she found him there. 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 . Hardly a block has been untouched missing sons, loved ones murdered, houses abandoned. He sprinted along the narrow pedestrian pass, hoping to get away. All were murdered during Mexico's ongoing cocaine wars. In December 2011, a bombshell news story described cartel penetration of the government in Veracruz, based on a still-confidential report by the Mexican Attorney Generals Office. Her son, Luis, took over the group she had started, a collective of the many local families whose loved ones had disappeared. (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. The corpses of 72 Central American migrants were discovered at this ranch. 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. In the time since Martnezs death, her instincts have been validated. Her death gave shape to the impunity that twists everyday life in Mexico, and the government scrambled to react. Like everyone else in the city, Lucianos relatives knew the story of Karens kidnapping and Mrs. Rodrguezs tragic heroism. Someone wanted to stop the news reports about the executions. The greatest fear one could have as a parent is losing a child, said his mother, Mrs. Garza. The city of San Fernando has been scarred by a decade-long war between cartel factions. For the most part, residents dont speak out against organized crime. Azalea watched as her mothers sadness hardened into resolve and her hope gave way to revenge. She sought to prove the traffickers and their accomplices had executed hundreds of people: Teenage dealers and entire families. Zetas kill and behead 4 women. Her body had been quickly discovered when a neighbor alerted police to her open front door. He slowly shrank, physically and spiritually, until his children struggled to recognize him. We must rid ourselves of the fear to stand up and speak out.. The four other parts can be found at forbiddenstories.org. A missing persons poster for Luciano Leal Garza on the window of a taqueria in San Fernando. LEFT: Writer and journalist Elena Poniatowska holds a photo of Regina Martnez during a 2017 protest in Mexico City calling for an end to violence against journalists. In three years, Mrs. Rodrguez captured nearly every living member of the crew that had abducted her daughter for ransom, a rogues gallery of criminals who tried to start new lives as a born-again Christian, a taxi driver, a car salesman, a babysitter. By the next morning, the kidnappers stopped answering their phones and the family knew Luciano was not coming home. In Mexico, politicians rely on narcos for campaign funds. The day after, the kidnappers said they wanted more. Only her tape recorder and computer were gone. He recognized her and ran. A white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped prison quietly pulled up behind her, according to the police report. The following year, the family said, a group of scientists found a piece of femur belonging to her daughter. For a city of about 60,000, San Fernando bears an infamy out of proportion to its size, a misfortune born of geography. He added that the suspect was not speaking to the police, and said that he had acted alone. And to get it, she needed to get close. She had already confirmed his involvement in Karens kidnapping, thanks to the mechanic abducted along with her daughter that night. She worked to show that government forces were secretly burying hundreds of disappeared people in mass graves. There is a drug war in Nuevo Laredo between rival drug cartels that . 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. He escaped the country in a helicopter and was later arrested in Guatemala. They snatched innocents for ransom to finance their war, or for conscripts to fight it. Their sister had died, their mother, too, even their mothers friend, Ms. Saldivar Villavicencio, who recently had died of Covid-19. 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. On Feb 24, the Gothika. For four more years, he is known to have killed 30 people total, acting as a hitman for the Zeta cartel. The cartel has unlimited resources to have all weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles, military gear . I want to end this. Frightened colleagues sometimes tried to warn her off investigations. The relatives took precautions, at times monitoring their children with an intensity that bordered on surveillance. 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. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. (Marco Ugarte/AP) RIGHT: Posters of Espinosa and four slain women hang outside Veracruz state government offices in 2015, above posters of then-Gov. No one challenged organized crime, never mind put its members in prison. In March of 2017, nearly two dozen prisoners escaped the penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria, where Mrs. Rodrguezs efforts had put her daughters killers. 'Very few readers noticed' the comic's absence, one editor said. Duarte was obsessed, she wrote in Proceso, with censoring the truth. They knew they were among the fortunate few who at least had somewhere to mourn them. 4:38 A gunman shot and killed a journalist in Tijuana Sunday. The extortion of 80 small-town mayors. The office announced that Isidoro Gonzles Gernimo, a suspected drug trafficker known as "El Isis" who operated in Guerrero, was also shot and killed in Oaxaca state on Friday. They have hired gravediggers and forensic experts. LEFT: Signs mark clandestine graves where almost 300 bodies were found in Colinas de Santa Fe, in Veracruz, in 2018. As the funeral crowd dispersed, Luis and Azalea went to their mothers grave, a church-like structure lined with cypress trees. 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. About five hours later, several 911 calls came in from the site of the first shooting. She recognized him immediately from their lunch, the same slender frame and clean-shaven face. 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. 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.. [The search for the disappeared points to Mexicos darkest secrets], Martnez contacted photographer Julio Argumedo to take pictures for Proceso. His father, also Luciano, owned a thriving construction materials store. On the drive back from the ranch, Mrs. Rodrguez passed a barbecue restaurant near the entrance of the dirt road to the ranch. 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. What the local press did not want to publish was published through Regina Martnez, said Jorge Carrasco, Procesos editor in chief. 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. The city placed a bronze plaque honoring her in the central plaza. She scoffed. Los Zetas could not operate in Veracruz without his permission As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 1 min read. The first thing he asked was whether his two little sisters were safe. Two weeks later, the tortured and decapitated body of Notivers police reporter was discovered. 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. His mother made a heart-rending recording, pleading with the kidnappers to return her son. In September 2011, two truckloads of bloody, half-naked corpses were dumped at a busy intersection in front of a shopping mall in the touristy beach city of Boca del Ro, just blocks from where state prosecutors were holding a meeting. Eight others have disappeared. She knew the florist had sold flowers on the street before joining the Zeta cartel and getting involved in her daughters kidnapping. Executions, not just of petty dealers but of prominent business executives, livestock farmers and peasant leaders. Details about the report, which contained U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data and cited 14 protected witnesses, were published by Grupo Imagen Multimedia, a Mexican media conglomerate with television, radio, newspaper and Internet holdings. . Mexican marines had killed six of the accomplices, Cristian said in his statement. Disappearances undermine the very nature of grief, stripping families of even the most basic closure. 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. She went to the authorities local, state and federal but none would help her. 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. The presence of multiple, competing cartels provoked turf battles and an increase in killings. She had known Ms. Betancourt ever since she was a child, abandoned by a prostitute at the local brothel. Cinemas, nightclubs and shops were almost empty, a consequence of the violence, she wrote. The "execution" of six men and . This is the first in a series of five articles, called "The Cartel Project," involving 60 journalists from 18 countries. Over the years, kidnappers had already ransomed several members of Lucianos family, including his father, held for 33 days in 2012. Martnez was one of the very few reporters who dared to refuse bribes or to ignore cartel threats aimed at censoring the news. Dead.. 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. She knew their habits, friends, hometowns, childhoods. 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 government said nothing about how it had found the grave site. Only after his sister opened his Facebook account did they realize what had happened. A 19-year-old Florida man is now facing three first-degree-murder charges related to shootings last week that killed a television news reporter, a 9-year-old girl and a 38-year-old woman, sheriff . 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. When she returned, the officer asked her what she had been thinking. Even young women who attended their sex parties. Her friends often wondered if she was going too far. Last year, one female killer known as "La Peque" was captured by the authorities for her work for the Sinaloa Cartel in north-western Mexico. Law enforcement officers at the scene of a shooting in Pine Hills, Fla., on Wednesday. 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. Journalist and activist Gildo Garza, right, reads the names of murdered journalists at a demonstration outside the federal attorney general's office in Mexico City. When she finally found him, she got too excited, and too close. Luis shook hands with Lucianos father but barely said a word, then walked off, wiping his eyes. Mrs. Rodrguezs husband was different after Karen vanished. It was headline news in Mexico, with calls for a thorough investigation. As he drove back to San Fernando, the kidnappers called. International press groups consider Veracruz to be the most dangerous place in the world to report the news. Mass graves were so common that finding fewer than 20 remains at a time barely merited a headline. In 2016, the Mexican Attorney Generals Office charged Duarte with embezzlement, illicit enrichment and money laundering. 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. La Voz is one such example of this, as the newspaper is not real . You have all taught my family that together we can fight back, she said. 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. 237 points 27 comments. The demonic cartels left a message on the body: "This is for ALL [] I very much regret each death and each person who receives some mistreatment. 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