In 2005, American writer Cormac McCarthy published the novel ‘No country for Oldmen’ (‘It is not a country for old’, in Spanish). A history of violence, missing, narcos, crime and hitmen on the border between Mexico and the United States. The title is a clear allusion to … A territory where any vulnerability is paid with life. But, for two weeks, in Mexico, reality refers to fiction and confirms that in this country they are not the elderly, but young people, who are in danger are found.
The finding of a ranch controlled by organized crime in the depths of Jalisco opened the door to a horror scenario. A collective of missing persons found a ranch in Teuchitlán that functioned as a field of training of organized crime to add new people to their ranks. The installation included crematorium ovens. Around these, dozens of belongings and clothing of those whose bodies were reduced to ashes. Jalisco’s Warriors group Guerreros reported that more than 200 pairs of shoes were found in the Izaguirre Rancho. The image made this place baptized as the Auschwitz in Mexico.
Jalisco, in western Mexico and with Guadalajara as its capital, is the state with the greatest number of missing persons in the country. According to official figures, more than 15,042 cases of people in an unknown whereabouts. An analysis of the University of Guadalajara indicates that in the week of March 10 to 16, 49 disappearances were reported in Jalisco. Only nine people of that total are over 30 years old.
The finding of the ranch installed on the public agenda a count of killings and disappearances still unanswered. In 2018, three film students disappeared in Guadalajara and the official theory was that their bodies ended up diluted in acid. In 2014, eleven workers disappeared in the Jalisco municipality of Casimiro Castillo. In 2023, eleven young people who were hired to allegedly work in a ‘call center’ disappeared and were found dead. That same year the track of five teenagers was lost in the municipality of Lagos de Moreno. And the list continues …
Slave labor fields
The stories that circulate between missing seekers, police officers and human rights activists are rugged. There is talk of large slave labor fields managed by the narco, where discipline is military and those who escape do so with irreparable sequelae. “Three years ago we met a 24 -year -old who told us how her captivity was in one of those fields and forced her to eat human flesh,” he declared to ABC, on anonymity condition, a former official of the Jalisco State Search Commission.
According to testimonies collected by said commission, the main objective of the narco recruitment fields is to dehumanize, at the highest possible speed, to the prisoners. It is about removing them from their personal links and bringing them closer to death: the process ends when they are responsible for killing. Culminated that phase is already integrated into the operational functions of the criminal group.
«Young women living in poverty are always in the sight of the narco. Children with few family ties and a life full of shortcomings that are tempted with weapons, drugs and money, are told that narco is the only way to advance in life, the only way to have something, ”denounces activist Ceci Flores, president of Sonora’s seekers.
“Children with few family ties and a life full of deficiencies that are tempted with weapons, drugs and money, they are told that the narco is the only way to advance in life”
Ceci Flores
President of Sonora’s seeking mothers
The universe of capture available to organized crime is immense. In Mexico, 16.4 million young people live in a situation of poverty, exclusion and job precariousness, according to a study by the Citizen Action organization against poverty. This figure represents more than half of the 31.2 million young people between 15 and 29 years old in the country.
«While the disappearances occur in all social classes, it is true that the trend grows when indicators of places with shortcomings are analyzed. On the outskirts of Guadalajara there is a municipality called Tlajomulco where the levels of missing are high and where graves with human remains have also been found, ”he explains to ABC Alejandra Guillenacademic of the Technological and Higher Studies Institute of the West (ITESO).
The recruitment of minors by criminal groups is a problem that affects all of Mexico. According to the network for the rights of childhood in Mexico, between 145,000 and 250,000 children and adolescents are at risk of being recruited every year. Due to their young age, one of the forms that the narco chooses to approach them and recruit them is through video games, especially those that consist of demonstrating the skill with firearms.
Up, remains search work at the Izaguirre Rancho; Below, on the left, shoes found in the enclosure; On the right, José Gregorio ‘N’, the alleged recruiter of the CJNG, which was arrested last Friday
Regulate social networks
The digital recruitment is so serious that President Claudia Sheinbaum announced last week that the government analyzes a greater regulation of social networks to avoid the approximation of organized crime to the youngest. In his opinion, these systems include even sales and shipping platform as a free market.
There is still no response on the architects of Teuchitlan’s horror, but all suspicions point to the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), the same criminal organization that in December was applauded by a mayor of Michoacán for delivering gifts and toys to children at Christmas. Less than three months later, the mayor is close to being dismissed and the terrible finding of this week has shown the true face of the cartel.
It has also raised a great popular outrage, which has caused the Ministry of Citizen Safety and Protection (SSPC) to announce on Friday the arrest of José Gregorio ‘N’, identified as leader of a cell responsible for recruitment and training of hitmen for the CJNG. The capture of ‘El Lastra’, as is also known, occurred in the Mayor’s Office of Cuajimalpa, in Mexico City, according to the Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, who announced that this Monday more details of the detention and, probably, of the Izaguigu Horror Ranch will be known.
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