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on the border line between the US and Mexico
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

30 lives extinguished, but no regrets: A killer's story

Posted by DD republished from Yahoo.News AP story  

 


IGUALA, Mexico (AP) — The killer says he "disappeared" a man for the first time at age 20. Nine years later, he says, he has eliminated 30 people — maybe three in error.

He sometimes feels sorry about the work he does but has no regrets, he says, because he is providing a kind of public service, defending his community from outsiders. Things would be much worse if rivals took over.

"A lot of times your neighborhood, your town, your city is being invaded by people who you think are going to hurt your family, your society," he says. "Well, then you have to act, because the government isn't going to come help you."

He operates along the Costa Grande of Guerrero, the southwestern state that is home to glitzy Acapulco as well as to rich farmland used to cultivate heroin poppies and marijuana. Large swaths of the state are controlled or contested by violent drug cartels that traffic in opium paste for the U.S. market, and more than 1,000 people have been reported missing in Guerrero since 2007— far fewer than the actual number believed to have disappeared in the state.


The plight of the missing and their families burst into public awareness last year when 43 rural college students were detained by police and disappeared from the Guerrero city of Iguala, setting off national protests. Then, suddenly, hundreds more families from the area came forward to report their kidnap victims, known now as "the other disappeared." They told stories of children and spouses abducted from home at gunpoint, or who left the house one day and simply vanished.

This is a story from the other side, the tale of a man who kidnaps, tortures and kills for a drug cartel. His story is the mirror image of those recounted by survivors and victims' families, and seems to confirm their worst fears: Many, if not most, of the disappeared likely are never coming home.

"Have you disappeared people?" he is asked.
"Yes," he replies.
In Mexico and other places where kidnapping is common, the word "disappeared" is an active verb and also an adjective to describe the missing. Disappearing someone means kidnapping, torturing, killing and disposing of the body in a place where no one will ever find it.

To date, none of the killer's victims have been found, he says.

For months, the AP approached sources connected with cartel bosses, seeking an interview with someone who executes people on their behalf.

Finally, the bosses put forward this 29-year-old man, with conditions: He, his organization and the town where he met with reporters would not be identified. He would appear on camera wearing a ski mask, and his voice would be distorted. And one of his bosses would be present throughout.


In jeans and a camouflage T-shirt, the hit man looked younger than his 29 years. He wore a baseball cap with a badge bearing the face of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and "prisoner 3578" — Guzman's inmate number before he escaped through a tunnel from Mexico's maximum-security prison in July, cementing his image as a folk hero. 

"Of all the bad lot," the killer said, Guzman "seems to be the least bad."

The killer — who does not work for Guzman — does not see himself as bad. Unlike others, he says, he has standards: He doesn't kill women or children. He doesn't make his victims dig their own graves. He raises cattle for a living and doesn't consider himself a drug trafficker or a professional killer, although he is paid for disappearing people. While he acknowledges that what he does is illegal, he says he is defending his people against the violence of other cartels.


The killer wears a bag with a strap over his chest in which he carries several walkie-talkies and cell phones, one of which he used to take calls and issue orders: "Muevanse," he said — move on. "Esperense ahí" — wait there. Just before the interview begins, he puts the bag aside, and slips on the ski mask. He sits in a plastic armchair.
n this Nov. 29, 2015 photo, a man claiming to be responsible for kidnapping, torture and killing on behalf of a drug cartel speaks to the Associated Press in Guerrero state's Costa Grande region, Mexico.
There are many reasons people are disappeared, the killer says. It may be for belonging to a rival gang, or for giving information to one. If a person is considered a security risk for any reason, he may be disappeared. Some are kidnapped for ransom, though he says he does not do this.

Each kidnapping starts with locating the target. The best place is at a home, early in the morning, "when everyone is asleep." But sometimes they are kidnapped from public areas. If the target is unarmed, two men are enough to carry out a "pickup" or "levanton," as the gang kidnappings are known. If he is armed, it requires more manpower.

The victim is taken to a safe house or far enough out into the woods that no one will hear him during the next step: "getting information out of them by torture."

He rests his forearms on the chair and moves his hands over his knees as he speaks about torture. He describes three methods: beatings; waterboarding, or simulated drownings in which a cloth is tied around the mouth and nose, and water is poured over it; and electric shocks to the testicles, tongue and the soles of the feet.

He has no training in torture. He learned it all by practice, he says. "With time, you come to learn how to hurt people, to get the information you need."

It usually takes just one night. "Of the people who have information you want, 99 percent will give you that information," he says. Once he gets it, he kills them. "Usually with a gun."

The problem is that people under torture sometimes admit to things that are not true: "They do it in hope that you will stop hurting them. They think it's a way to get out of the situation."

 That may have happened to him three times, he says, leading him to kill the wrong men.
 
The dead are buried in clandestine grave sites, dumped into the ocean, or burned. If the organization wants to send a message to another cartel, a victim's tortured body is dumped in a public area. But the 30 people he has "disappeared" all have been buried, he says.

By the official count, 26,000 Mexicans have been reported missing nationwide since 2007, just over 1,000 of those from Guerrero. But human rights officials and the experience of families from the Iguala area indicate that most people are too afraid to report kidnappings, particularly in areas where police, municipal and state officials are believed to be operating in tandem with the cartels. The official tally has just 24 missing from the Costa Grande area, where the killer says he has been involved in the killings of 30 people.

"The (disappeared) problem is much bigger than people think," the killer says.

The killer has a grade-school education. He wanted to continue studying, but when he was a child there was no middle school in his town. "I would have liked to learn languages ... to travel to other places or other countries. I would have liked that," he said.

Some in his circumstances use drugs, but he says he doesn't. "When people are on drugs, they're not really themselves," he says. "They lose control, their judgment."

He says no one forced him to join his organization. His parents and siblings don't know what he does, but he thinks they can guess, since he is always armed: He usually carries a .38-caliber pistol and an AK-47 assault rifle.

He isn't married and has no children. Although he would like to have a family, he knows his future is uncertain. "I don't really see anything," he said. "I don't think you can make plans for the future, because you don't know what will happen tomorrow."

"It's not a pretty life," he says.

Life in an area torn by drug disputes is rarely pretty. For years, Guzman's Sinaloa cartel controlled drug production, coastal access and trafficking routes in Guerrero. The Beltran Leyva brothers took over, until the Mexican government killed Arturo Beltran Leyva in a shootout in December 2009, and then the state's opium and marijuana business was divided up among half a dozen smaller cartels, including Guerreros Unidos, los Rojos, Los Granados and La Familia, from neighboring Michoacan state.

Besides running drugs, some Mexican cartels operate extortion rackets and control human trafficking to the United States. Where needed, they buy off politicians and police forces to make sure nothing gets in the way of business. When necessary, they kill those who fail to cooperate.

The violence spikes when cartels are fighting each other for control of territory, or when the military launches operations to strike the cartels. An anti-narcotics military operation prevented the killer's arrival at a pre-arranged location on the first try, but the next day he and his bosses made it to a house on a humid stretch of the Pacific Ocean known as the Costa Grande, an area lush with groves of coconuts and mangos — other exports for which cartels take a cut.

In recent years, residents of a number of towns and cities have taken up arms to protect themselves against drug cartels. In several cases, authorities have claimed these vigilantes are allied with rival gangs, and pass themselves off as self-defense groups to gain greater legitimacy.

Federal authorities told the AP that several drug gangs in Guerrero, including those that operate on the Costa Grande, act as self-defense groups to generate support from local residents.

"I can't say I'm a vigilante," says the killer, "but I am part of a group that protects people, an autonomous group of people who protect their town, their people."

He recognizes he would be punished if caught by the authorities. "For them, these (killings) are not justifiable under the laws we have, but my conscience — how can I put this — this is something that I can justify, because I am defending my family." A rival gang, "would do worse damage."

The killer fears dying, but he fears being captured by a rival gang even more. He knows better than most what will happen to him: "If I died in a shootout, for example, the suffering wouldn't be as bad."

With the same lack of emotion with which he described torture, the killer addresses his many murders.

"Whatever you want to say, you're hurting someone and in the end, you kill them, and that leaves people hurting, the family hurting," he said. "It's the kind of thing that causes stress and remorse, because it's not a good thing."


But he tries not to think about it too much, and while he can remember the number of people he has killed and the places he buried them, he says he cannot recall his victims. "Over time," he says, "you forget."

64 comments:

  1. Good God
    Another ENGLISH language news source . Good Going !
    Maybe MORE folks will see this.

    where r u GADEJO ?

    I like your comments

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    2. GADEJO's busy w/ a protest movement against the English language...

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  2. 'Not a pretty life',he says.Maybe some 'wannabe' that might sink in.

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    1. I need me a Canadiana in my life.

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    2. 11:16, Seriously? Scared straight? That's a cop fallacy.

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    3. Scared Straight was a gangster plot sponsored by the government to recruit youngsters who AIN'T SKEERED INTO THEIR GANG-BANGING AND DRUG TRAFFICKING BULLSHIT, as a result, there is more crime than ever all over the US...

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    5. You swim with sharks,ya gotta have teeth!
      El Tiburon

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    6. Prisoners should have never been allowed to scare anybody but each other, even if they were innocent, work your case, take a lie detector and go from there, rise he about your case, but corrupting others? Young people? No, thanks...

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  3. Yeah, yeah, anybody with a cap to demonize EL CHAPO...confessed and everything...
    --We all know the guerrero state government in cahoots with the federal government, using the military, the paramilitary, private security guards, municipal, state and federal poolice, and state paid and authorized autodefensas, and the 10 000s of thousands of army elements the federales have sent to guerrero over the years, including the GAFES, AND POOLITICIANS LIKE RUBEN FIGUEROA ALCOCER, AND HIS DADDY RUBEN FIGUEROA FIGUEROA (?), AND ALL THE REST OF GOVERNORS OF THE STATE, INCLUDING FRANCISCO RUIZ MASSIEU, AND ANGEL AGUIRRE RIVERO, EMILIO CHUAYFFET CHEMOR, AND "presidente" ERNESTO ZEDILLO, ARE THE ONES THAT NEED TO BE INTERVIEWED AND PARADED ON THE NEWS...
    --Zedillo has been convicted for hell's shakes!!!
    --And what is worse, the US says it is ok to harbor a murdering maniac like zedillo, because he is gay?
    --or because he sold out?

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    1. Everybody got played. The story's a plant:-)

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    2. 4:37pm and your evidence is???

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    3. The photo with the big hairy eyeball and the baklava isn't recent, it's on fb, check it out on one of the Valor de Tamaulipas's pages. Do your research, you'll see.

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    4. Another tidbit to ponder..Valor Por Tamaulipas ya se vendio ya no es la misma pagina desde hace unos meses. Al parecer el CDG lo compro.

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    5. The pic has been used before, ok. That's hardly evidence that this story is a plant.

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  4. The man is confused, ignorant and not wholly truthful.

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    1. HOWWWWWWW do you know this?

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    2. @8:16
      As for being ignorant he says it himself, almost no education. For being confused and untruthful read the article, he's vague in his answers, he imagines he is doing something good yet he seems unaware that he is being used. Obviously, he's not telling the whole truth.

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    3. Read the article.

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    5. Good points gadejo.

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    6. Peña nieto, foz, fecal, chuayffet, zedillo, Carlo Salinash the "g" a their ministers and ginirals have educaishun, .any from foreign institutions of higher knowledge, like yale and harvard, and all they learned is to be polished criminals and drug trafficking sellouts...and mass murderers...

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  5. Replies
    1. Mamate esta... Perro pañalero

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    2. los albureros lo entenderan :-)

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    3. El de la 14 se la come toda...

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    4. heuy la cabroneria andante

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    5. 9:18 quiere un cachito.

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  6. he is a gentleman does not kill women and children. Here Tamps. they kill women and children. so this is not going to end

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    1. 30 murders...
      The mexican governing narco-mierdocracia has 300 000 murdered in the past 20 years and acknowledges about 30 000 disappeared, plus the unknown unknowns...
      --Just so much bullshit, trying to convince somebody that there are community defenders that murder and disappear in guerrero state, "just to save their communities", bullshit on top of bullshit...

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    2. Agree with 5:20 PM, b.s. is layered up thick by pro's.

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  7. He's like most gangsters and cartel members, a borderline sociopath. Doesn't understand the pain he inflicts on others or doesn't care but feels his own pain.

    For example he tortures people but yet fears being tortured. He is trying to act like he hasn't done it to people who have the same job as him.

    He says a lot of times people invade his town and he thinks that people are going to hurt his family and society yet I'm willing to bet the cartel he is a part of does the exact same thing to rival cartel areas when they see an opportunity..

    It's a sad article really. If only he'd realize the hypocrisy of his whole life.

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    1. That's another story.. And your no story teller

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    2. AND?????, people tend to build their own idea of what a killer really is..., step away from your norms and try to see it through his eyes... you come to understand that his rational...

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    3. I agree with all of everyones statements above .Remember the guys boss was present so he has to say all of the 'right'things to sway the English public.Just an exercise in PR bullshit.

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    4. He supposedly raises cattle.I will bet he raises crops too and protects those.

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  8. Christian Lopez PalafoxDecember 15, 2015 at 8:21 PM

    And why is he and his minions allowed to roam freely through these impoverished towns armed to the teeth killing anybody for a buck from the regional jefe? Because the people who are elected in office to work FOR the people, are prostituting themselves to the illerate drug barons disregarding the safety of the public where they are elected in. When these criminals who the mexican people ignorantly idolize are in control and have authority is when chaos and bloodshed ensues Ex. ISIS but this has been happening for 9 years now with no end in sight. What Méxicos only solution is take back the country from the criminals in office and the cartels, to the point where the people dont need to escape to a foreign country where they get despised on and attacked for simply being there. You tell most mexicans in the US and they tell you that Mexico is beautiful but that poverty and violence plagues the country with nothing being done about it by the leadership elected by them, the only difference clearly visible is the size of the house and the amount of cars of the good ol mexican politician

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    1. Very well said.

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    2. ISIS is a US major network production just like the war on drugs.

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  9. I heard the el Guero Palma was released yesterday from prison does anyone have any info on that?

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  10. 26,000 since 2007, that is not comparable with our 22,000 every year from "gun accidents", totals 176,000. This of course is additional to our recognized 18,500 "official" violent murders per year. A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF HUMANS IN ALL SOCIETIES ARE PSYCOPATHS WHO ENJOY MURDER AND TORTURE. We often send them to make wars in other countries (Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Syria...)

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  11. wtf is that big lump on his head?

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  12. Don't believe he is for real. Real Narcos kill women and children. At least that happens in Tamps.

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    1. Fact, dude. Right there's the tell that this is fake bs.

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  13. When crooks see your block as their "turf", your home and your town become "their plaza", and they are not shy about letting you know, it is not like a new neighbor came to live there, or that lives there, or is just "visiting"...
    That only happens on fairy tales these days, better help them to the door and make sure they do not come back.
    --their organization will send another and another, and then all of them, to see what the problem...
    --don't be a dick about where the news come from, but beware of reports that toe the official mexican governing narco-mierdocracia line, that "the biiig baaad narcs" are the root cause of all the problems in mexico...like this report tries to "insinuate" with a low leveL narco-intensity common to official propaganda...
    --Every time chivis is "gone" this shit happens...

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  14. Super lechoso aqui en Las Vegas en Bellagio Casino.

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    1. 6:18 you must have had your share of 48 000 customers...

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    2. Chivis! Voz estáis haciendo mucha falta:-)

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    3. Milky is that really you?

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    4. 9:18 nope, that is YOUR 'STACH, MILK 'STACH talking to you on the mirror, from your 48 000 customers

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    5. Shortser, dude, Bellagio? Tacky.

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    1. Rupert Murdock has been convicted as a criminal, everybody knows he is corrupt and a liar, and he still has his flowers, thoroughly brainwashed fools, very good for a fucking kangaroo nobody wanted in australia...

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  16. These criminals can justify anything . Its knida like justifying killing a thief because he is stealing what I want to steal . Its is totally justifiable to them. Or the bastard is evil because he wants to grow poppies and that's how I support my family .

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    1. I totally agree with you.I like the reference to kill a thief because hes stealing what you want to steal.Maybe justifying it soothes their conscience if theres any left after the 1st few kills or they would be totally dysfunctional.

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  17. I didn't read this article. I don't believe a stupid hitman should receive this much attention and or publicity. I do not believe anybody should interview him unless its a psychiatrist and even then I have my doubts. Fuck him no matter what the fuck he says. Him and anybody like him will ever get my attention or respect.

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  18. Glad i chose costa rica for vacation this year. Here they welcome tourists instead of trying to kill them. Pura vida!

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  19. It is, what it is. What, he's just supposed to wait for something bad to happen to him or his family? Not like he can depend on his govt to do the right thing. The man is just doing, what many on here, have said, needed to be done, a very long time ago! He's not robbing, raping or stealing from nobody.If he's really doing, what he's claiming, than God bless him! Maybe, the next time some POS child rapist wants to move in his community, he'll re-think that move...Cause all them other rapist,have all gone missing!

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  20. Drop him to the ground.

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