A Brief History
On April 6, 2011, Mexican law enforcement authorities dug up 59 bodies of innocent people murdered by the Los Zetas drug cartel, and before they were done by June had dug up a total of 193 bodies!
Digging Deeper
Digging deeper (deep enough to find 193 victims!), we find a murderous and ruthless drug gang, Los Zetas, operating in the area of San Fernando, Mexico at a place called La Joya Ranch.
As if that is not cracked enough, the female victims had been sexually assaulted, and the male victims had been forced to fight to the death in gladiator type combat! The hapless victims had been immigrants from Central and South America trying to find their way to the US when they were kidnapped by Los Zetas.
The drug thugs thought the immigrants may be workers coming to reinforce the ranks of enemy drug cartels, and Los Zetas attempted to force the kidnapped people into working for Los Zetas. Those that refused to become drug slaves were killed for the enjoyment of the druggies!
Residents of the San Fernando area fled the area in large numbers, and the government was forced to send 650 soldiers there to regain order. The Army arrested 82 of the Los Zetas gang and order was more or less restored. Some residents returned and life there is slowly approaching normal.
The extra-cracked side to this tale is that in August of 2010 a survivor of another group of immigrants kidnapped, ordered to work for the cartel and ordered to obtain ransom, and were murdered and buried like the 2011 massacre told authorities about the mass murders and authorities then discovered 72 bodies of murdered people. Those 72 seemed like a huge number until the 2011 massacre was discovered!
A high ranking member of the Los Zetas cartel that had been arrested told law enforcement that there were actually over 600 such victims buried all over the general area around San Fernando! Those bodies have not yet been found, but based on so many already found it certainly seems possible. Anti-drug cartel activists believe it!
Pressure from within Mexico and from many North and South American countries forced the Mexican government to take firm action to curb the violence. Many arrests were made and the Army used to maintain peace, as local police were outnumbered and outgunned by the drug cartels.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Are the American people at fault for buying all the drugs the cartel can manage to smuggle into the US? Would legalizing drugs put an end to this sort of violence? Should the US military, with or without the consent of Mexico and other countries, raid foreign drug centers? What do you think should be done?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Blog del Narco. Dying for the Truth: Undercover Inside the Mexican Drug War by the Fugitive Reporters of Blog del Narco. Feral House, 2013.
Farrell, Courtney. The Mexican Drug War (Essential Issues). Essential Library, 2011.
The featured image in this article, a chart by Grupo Reforma of murders in Mexico since 2006 related to drug trafficking activities, is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
