The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office (Fiscalia General del Estado, FGE) revealed yesterday that three Guadalajara film students, missing since March 19, were abducted by members of a drug cartel who mistakenly believed they were in the employ of a rival group. The three young men, all in their early 20s, were tortured, murdered and their bodies dissolved in acid, the agency said.
In a press conference Monday, Attorney General Raúl Sánchez Jiménez did not name the drug cartel behind the murders, but it is believed to be the Cartel Jalisco Nuevo Generacion (CJNG).
The FGE investigation has led to the apprehension of two men and arrest warrants issued for six others.
Despite repeated assurances over the past month by the FGE and Governor Aristoteles Sandoval that the matter was being thoroughly investigated, the disappearance of the students – Jesús Daniel Díaz García, 20, Marco Francisco García Ávalos, 20, and Javier Salomón Aceves Gastelum, 25 – provoked several angry protests, led by fellow Universidad de Guadalajara (UdG) students fed up at escalating cime and rviolence in Jalisco.
According to the chief investigator on the case, the three students were abducted after shooting a short film in a house in Tonala that was under surveillance by members of a CJNG cell. The property had previously served as a safe house for a rival cartel, known as La Nueva Plaza. However, it had since passed into the hands of an aunt of one of the students, who allegedly used it as a brothel. Investigators said the students, who borrowed the property to shoot their film, had no knowledge of any illicit activities that had taken place there.
After they had finished filming their project, the students left in a car but were apprehended a short time later by six heavily armed men riding in two pick ups and claiming to be cops.
Investigators said the students were taken to a house in Tonala and interrogated for information on the whereabouts of the leader of La Nueva Plaza. After Díaz García was beaten so badly that he died, investigators surmise that the cartel members decided to kill the other two students and dispose of their bodies. Their corpses were taken to another house in Tonala where they were dissolved in baths of acid. Other victims of the cartel probably suffered the same fate at this property.
According to investigators, traces of Diaz’s blood were found at the first property, while genetic evidence pertaining to two of the victims was collected at the second house.
The revelations did little to quell the ire of students in Guadalajara. A vigil was convened outside the Casa Jalisco official residence of the state governor Monday evening, and calls made for his resignation. Another large demonstration was held Tuesday afternoon.
Not everyone was buying the FGE’s findings, and some skeptics called for an independent investigation. César Pérez Verónica, director of the Centro de Justicia para la Paz y el Desarrollo (Cepad), said the official version of events seemed “confused,” and that many of the details needed clarifying. He alluded to the case of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training school who went missing in September 2014. The initial findings of authorities later proved to be inaccurate, Pérez said, and only subsequent independent investigation was able to shine more light on the incident.
Jesús Medina Varela, president of the UdG student body, the Federation of University Students (FEU), said the FGE report left “many doubts” and that students would “not tire” of taking to the streets for further protests.
Sandoval said he understood the students’ anger but insisted he would not resign and see out his six-year term. He said the investigation was “solid” and based on more than 400 police interviews.
Outrage over the murders of the students poured out on social media Tuesday. Oscar-winning film director Guillermo del Toro, a native of Guadalajara, tweeted that “words are not enough to understand the dimension of this craziness … the ‘why’ is unthinkable, the ‘how’ is terrifying.”
More than 3,000 people have been reported as disappeared in Jalisco in the last decade, the vast majority aged between 18 and 35. Throughout Mexico, the figure is more than 35,000. Less than one percent of the cases have been resolved.