Five Mexican students murdered on camera by cartel after reportedly being lured to fake job offer
Five Mexican students murdered on camera by cartel after reportedly being lured to fake job offer
Five Mexican students were brutally murdered on camera by a cartel after allegedly being lured to meet for a fake job offer.
According to Daily Mail, the victims — Jaime Adolfo Martínez Miranda, 21; Dante Cedillo Hernández, 22; Diego Alberto Lara Santoyo, 20; Roberto Olmeda Cuellar, 20; and Uriel Galván González, 19 — were last seen on Friday (Aug. 11) in their hometown of Lagos de Moreno, Mexico. The childhood friends were reportedly tricked into a trap that was set up by a drug lord hoping to recruit them as hitmen. They were ordered to beat, stab, and even decapitate each other. However, when they refused to engage in these criminal activities, they were killed.
A video of the five kids on their knees with duct tape on their mouths and their bloody faces bruised has been circulating social media, shedding light on the dangerous cartels in Mexico. As previously reported by REVOLT, back in March, four friends drove from South Carolina to Matamoros, Mexico to accompany one who allegedly had to get a cosmetic procedure done. Before they could reach the appointment, the group was stopped by members of the Gulf Cartel and violently kidnapped. Two of them were shot to death during the attack.
According to authorities, members of the Mexican cartel reportedly apologized for their actions after the kidnapping was ruled as a case of mistaken identity when the assailants thought the Americans were Haitian drug smugglers. “We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the letter read. The anonymous person also stated that those members disobeyed the cartel’s rules, which include “respecting the life and well-being of the innocent.” Attached to the letter was a picture of five men tied up on the ground.
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5 young men lured by fake job offer brutally murdered by Mexican drug cartel on camera: report
The five young men who went missing in Mexico and were later shown on camera being brutally murdered by a Mexican drug cartel were lured to meet the gang with a fake job offer, according to a report.
The young men, all students and friends whose ages ranged between 19 and 22, who were duct-taped, beaten, stabbed and beheaded in a horrifically graphic video that made its rounds online this week, sought employment as private security, met a contact in town and were not seen again until the video surfaced, according to El Universal.
According to El Universal journalist Carlos Arrieta, the men were deceived into a meeting with the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel. They hoped to recruit the victims into their ranks and killed them after they refused.
The men were later identified by their relatives as Roberto Olmeda, Diego Lara, Uriel Galvan, Jaime Martinez and Dante Cedillo, El Pais reported.
El Universal reported the “strongest hypothesis” pointed to the young men contacting a call center to gain employment. Unbeknownst to the friends, the center is often “managed by the CJNG for [the] forced recruitment of people,” the outlet reported.
Detail of the house where allegedly five young men were murdered in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco State, Mexico, on Thursday.AFP via Getty Images
According to the report, these call centers offer high-paying jobs with attractive job benefits that are actually a hoax to trick young people into the CJNG, which then forcefully recruits applicants.
The Fiscalía del Estado de Jalisco — the Attorney General’s Office in the Mexican state of Jalisco — has yet to confirm the report and has not yet confirmed which of the two major drug cartels that vie for control over the La Orilla del Agua neighborhood in the town of Lagos de Moreno — the CJNG or the Sinaloa cartel — are responsible for the video and deaths.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mexican authorities located the property where the photo and video were allegedly filmed and found four burned and decapitated bodies.
The bodies were badly burned and had not yet been identified, according to prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco. However, the bodies were found inside a building near where the young men were kidnapped Friday and later photographed in captivity.
Blood stains are seen in the house where allegedly five young men were murdered in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco State, Mexico, on Thursday.AFP via Getty Images
A fifth body was found by police inside a burned-out car in a nearby area.
Photos shared by Jalisco prosecutors show brick and concrete buildings on a ranch, isolated by an open field. They also showed bloodstains on the floor, shoes scattered about and investigators examining the area.
“This makes one think the five youths were there at this ranch,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
Aerial view of the location where male human remains were found in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco state, Mexico, on Thursday.AFP via Getty Images
During a news briefing Wednesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the killings as “very regrettable,” while saying very little else about them. He mentioned federal prosecutors were taking over the case from Jalisco authorities as drug cartels were involved.
The young men went missing Friday while on a trip to attend a festival in the city of Lagos de Moreno, an area known for cartel violence.
They were next seen bound by tape, kneeling on the ground and surrounded by gang members, with one of them seen bludgeoning and apparently decapitating his friend.
The group of five friends, aged 19 to 22, disappeared last week in the western state of Jalisco, triggering a rare level of outrage in a country where kidnappings and killings are all too common.AFP via Getty Images
It revives memories of the most horrifying instances of drug cartel brutality, where kidnapped victims were forced to fight and even kill each other in gruesome ways.
In 2010, the old Zetas cartel abducted men and forced any who refused to work for the cartel to beat each other to death with sledgehammers.
The following year, authorities found 48 clandestine graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with sledgehammers.
Mexican prosecutors investigating gruesome cartel video showing victims forced to kill each other
Mexican prosecutors are investigating a gruesome drug cartel video that may depict the executions of five young men who went missing after attending a festival in Jalisco last week.
The video was making the rounds online Wednesday. Relatives of the young men – who went missing Friday in an area known for cartel violence – told media outlets that they recognized the clothing the victims were wearing.
The video shows bound, inert bodies seen lying in the foreground. Most disturbingly, a young man, who seems to be one of the victims, can be seen bludgeoning and decapitating a member of the kidnapped group of friends.
A Mexican soldier stands guard next to some graffitis of the drug trafficker Mayo Zambada (MZ) and the criminal group “Cartel de Sinaloa” (CDS), in Palmas Altas village, Jerez de Garcia Salinas municipality, Zacatecas state, Mexico, on March 14, 2022.
The fifth member of the kidnapped group may be the body police found inside a burned-out car in the area.
Luis Méndez Ruiz, the Jalisco state attorney general, said Tuesday that the men seen in the video “could be the five men who are being searched for.”
“This video and the information that was made public on a social media platform is now part of the investigation,” Méndez said.
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The video features a text written over the image that says “Puro MZ,” an apparent reference to El Mayo Zambada, the leader of a faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel. But it was unclear who was responsible for the video.
If confirmed, the video — which shows someone off-screen tossing the youth a brick, so he can bludgeon the victim with it — recalls memories of the most horrifying instances of drug cartel brutality, in which kidnap victims were forced to kill each other.
In 2010, one Mexican cartel abducted men from passenger buses and forced them to fight each other to death with sledgehammers.
That tragedy came to light in 2011, when authorities found 48 clandestine graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with sledgehammers, and many were Central American migrants.
It was later revealed the victims had been pulled off passing buses by the old Zetas drug cartel, and forced to fight each other with hammers or be killed, if they refused to work for the cartel.
