During the darkest days of the cartel in the 2000s and early 2010s, victims were forced to fight to the death
Mexican authorities are investigating a graphic video linked to a drug cartel. The video shows the murder of five young men who went to a festival in Jalisco last week and disappeared.
The video went viral online on Wednesday. Family members of the youths who went missing on Friday in an area known for gang violence – told news sources that they had identified clothing worn by the victims.
In the video, there are dead bodies lying on the ground. Most shockingly, one of the victims, a young man, is shown beating and cutting the head of one of the taken friends.
The police found a burned car in the area, and there’s a chance that the fifth person from the kidnapped group is the body discovered inside it.
Luis Méndez Ruiz, who is in charge of legal matters in Jalisco state, mentioned on Tuesday that the people shown in the video “might be the same five men who are currently being looked for.”
Méndez added, “This video and the details shared on a social media website are now part of the ongoing investigation.”
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The video shows the text “Puro MZ” written on the image, which seems to refer to El Mayo Zambada, the leader of a faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel. However, it is not clear who is responsible for making the video.
If the authenticity of the video is confirmed, it will bring back very disturbing memories of past incidents of drug cartel brutality where abductees are forced to kill each other.
Back in 2010, a Mexican cartel kidnapped men from buses and forced them to fight to the death using sledgehammers.
The shocking incident came to public attention in 2011 in the northern border state of Tamaulipas when authorities discovered 48 secret graves containing the remains of 193 people. Many of the victims were Central American migrants, and many suffered fatal blows to their skulls from sledgehammers.
Further investigation revealed that Zetas drug cartel victims were forced off the buses. They were forced to fight each other using hammers or executed if they refused to work for the cartel.