Borderland Beat

by Alex Marentes

  I was told his son was kidnapped, and in the last article they mention wife and daughter, nothing about a son, although I know that Tormenta had a son. It all just seems to click, and I wanted to give you guys an opportunity to digest it.

  My educated Guess....

  -Maka”

  La Pelirroja

  Another interesting thing that happened toward the end of 2010 was a particular event when heavily armed sicarios rescued a female prisoner that was being transported from a prison to a hospital in the city of Monterrey. Ovemex posted a short piece on the story on December 29, 2010 in Borderland Beat that was titled “Kidnapper rescued from custody in Monterrey.”

  “Four guards were taking Gabriela Elizabeth Muñiz Tamez, known as "La Pelirroja" (The Redhead), from Topo Chico prison to Monterrey's University Hospital when they were intercepted on the road by some of the associates of the prisoner, who managed to free her without firing a single shot.

  Muñiz Tamez, 31, and three accomplices had been arrested in July 2009 on charges of kidnapping and extorting shopkeepers in the southern part of Nuevo Leon state, whose capital is Monterrey.

  The guards escorting her were held for questioning about the Monday night escape.”

  Then something happened, we got some messages about the incident.

  On December 30, 2010 there was an email from anonymous source:

  “Pinches pendejos, ustedes creen que rescatamos a la puta de la pelorojo? Cabrones vale de mierda, ahorita se la ensenamos para que dejen de reportar de cosas que no saben nada.”

  Translation: "You fucking assholes, do you think we rescued the little bitch the red head? Fucking worth a shit, in a while we will show her to you so you stop reporting about shit you don’t know anything about.”

  We started getting information that “Pelirroja” was not rescued, but in fact had been abducted and would soon be tortured and executed. The body had not appeared anywhere and we were not able to confirm this claim. At least not until some time later when her body appeared hanging from a bridge.

  The incident was reported in Borderland Beat by contributor “Smurf” on December 31, 2010 in an article titled “La Pelirroja Found Dead in Monterrey.”

  “A woman was found hanging this morning from an overpass that intersects with Gonzalitos avenue in colonia Mitras Norte. The body had a message that was written across her back and torso that read;

  ‘Yair.’

  She was identified as Gabriela Elizabeth Muñiz Tamez, nicknamed “La Pelirroja”, who who had been abducted this past Monday by members of organized crime.

  Initial reports had cast doubt this was ‘La Pelirroja,’ because the although the victim had a similar hairstyle, it was dyed blond.

  However, after further investigation it has been confirmed that it was indeed the body of Gabriela Elizabeth.

  On a side note, this story and events in Monterrey were being closely monitored by the staff here at Borderland Beat. Before this story broke, we were directed to comments and tweets from several well known narco blogs that indicated that there may be a split within "The Federation" of the Sinaloa, La Familia, and Gulf Cartels.

  The specific letter mentioned that the people of this ‘New Federation’ did not agree with the policies of the old guard, whom they saw no difference between them and depravity of Los Zetas. The chilling effect was the fact that the comments seemed to predict that "La Pelirroja's" body would soon be found.

  ‘La liberación de la Peliroja, la muy pendeja se creyó que la íbamos a liberar… (je) solo fue un ajuste de cuentas, pronto daremos la ubicación de su cuerpesito… (Solo le hicimos justicia al pueblo.’

  Translation: ‘The rescue of La Pelirroja, the stupid bitch actually thought we were going to set her free (ha) it was only a settling of accounts, you will soon find her little body (we were only bringing justice to the city).”

  Sometimes the blogs would get the behind the scenes of events before they came up in public and eventually reported on main stream media. The hangings were another method of how organized crime sometimes executed people. It was a way to send a message in a very public way and spread terror in the communities. They would hang them from a bridge at night, and at day break, while heavy traffic filled the roads, the body was in display for everyone to see.

  Bus Passengers Forced to Fight to Death

  In 2011 I posted a very controversial post in BB that got a lot of attention. The Zetas were known of hijacking buses and executing the passengers. Police found hundreds of narco graves of people that had been executed and buried. Most of these deaths were people that had been abducted from buses.

  This was happening in the so called "Highway of death,"

  Highway 101 is in the state of Taumalipas. This highway travels from Cuidad Victoroa and Brownville, Texas, on the side of Mexico. The story started to make it's rounds on main stream media in both Mexico and the US.

  Houston Chronicle’s Dane Schiller described the chilling account of a member of the Zetas cartel who asked only to be referred by the apparent pseudonym “Juan” that combines Scarface, Saw and, unexpectedly, Gladiator.

  This was published by the Houston Chronicle and Atlantic Wire

  "Houston Chronicle’s Dane Schiller points to Borderland Beat, a blog run by a former law enforcement officer in the Southwest United States, who published a more detailed account of the death battles in April. We talked to the blog’s founder, Alejandro Marentes, who explained that a writer sent him the story which had been published on a blog in Spanish, and Marentes translated and republished it on Borderland Beat. After the post got some pickup on the internet, Marentes added this editor’s note: “To this point we have not been able to confirm its validity, we publish it for information purposes and for you to formulate your own conclusions.”

  It’s easy to see why some readers might find the story unbelievable.

  “It’s hard to get any type of confirmation from anything that’s happening there,” Marentes told The Atlantic Wire. “We have some people in Mexico that have good contacts, but many times we have a hard time.”

  Marentes continued by describing a lack of journalists on the ground in the San Fernando area. Most journalists don’t dare enter without police or military protection, but even then, many are threatened if not attacked. We contacted Dane Schiller, the Chronicle reporter, to find out more about how he found his source, he asked not to be interviewed. “I don’t want to make the story about me and my efforts,” Schiller said in an email.

  However, the original report is written like fiction. Victims from bus kidnappings–many of whom are illegal immigrants passing through Mexico to the United States–have reportedly been rescued from gang members, but there’s no indication that the post’s author was one of them. (Besides the fact, that they survived the tell the tale, if it’s true.)

  We asked Marentes, who’s been covering the cartel wars for years, his gut feeling on whether the reports of gladiatorlike battles could be true based on precedent in the Mexican drug wars. “The story’s realistic,” Marentes said. “All you’ve gotta do is look at what’s going on with the brutality of the violence over there–I can see that happening very easily over there.”

  This is the story that was posted on April 18, 2011 titled "A Nightmare of the Massacre in San Fernando."

  I put this disclaimer in the top of the story:

  "Editor Note: Ok, for the readers who might be confused, this story is making its rounds around the internet. To this point we have not been able to confirm its validity, we publish it for information purposes and for you to formulate your own conclusions. I felt regardless if fiction or not, it has some value in light of all the atrocities we have seen in the last couple of months in the region.”

  This is the story:

  “The bus of the ADO line was making its regular stop in the city of San Fernando, Tamaulipas on a destination to Reynosa. They arrived at the terminal unloading two people and boarding four, making a total of 15 passengers onboar
d the bus. The bus departed the terminal to follow the route; it was 8:30 in the evening of March 25, 2011. They quickly left the small village as they did not want to become victims of the criminals who operate in the city, however, that night would be the last they would fear, because they were already sitting in wait for them.

  The streets in San Fernando empty at about 6 pm. The small town is a ghost town after dark, no one leaves their homes, and everyone protects themselves for fear of Los Zetas. Only the luxurious SUVs are seen travelling through the empty streets, no one wants to run into them.

  The bus was just leaving the village when the driver saw a truck in the distance blocking the middle of the road and hooded men wielding AR-15s, at that moment he knew that all was over. The armed men ordered him to stop the bus; the driver was forced to stop. The men approached the bus pointing their long guns and shouting; “Open the door motherfucker, move it son of a bitch if you don’t want me to shoot you in the fucking head.” Shaking, the driver opened the door of the bus, and instantly the armed men boarded the bus, one of them struck the driver on the face with his rifle while the others went inside shouting at the passengers, “You all just got fucked mother fuckers.” The passengers on board were terrified, the women were crying while the children were hugging their parents, and also crying. Everyone was in panic, they thought it was just a robbery, but it was not.

  They ordered the driver to continue driving, taking him a several feet along the road until they reached a ditch, where they ordered him to get off the road there and go another 6 miles on a dirt road. This seemed to be the longest ride in the lives of the passengers. They reached a very wide open field in the middle of nowhere, a plot of some kind, it was very dark. At the location were approximately 20 luxury trucks, and 3 other buses from several different bus lines, some had visible bullet holes with flat tires and broken glass.

  One of the armed men told the driver to stop the bus, then they separated the men and women and then they ordered all the men to get out of the bus. They forced about 8 men out of the bus who ranged from 15 to 50 years old. They lined them up next to the bus where several armed men approached them and they started to separate them again by removing the old or weak. They removed two old men and two others that looked sick. They tied their hands and feet, and took them to another group of men that also seem to be old and weak. The ones who remained back were told to remove their shirt and to wait there.

  Some of the armed men went to one of the SUV’s parked nearby and shouted “call the comandante.” It is when the presence of this man was made known, who was dressed in all black commando style, wearing a bulletproof vest and pouches all over his clothes; they all called him “Comandante 40.” The man approached the men without shirts that had been forced off the bus and told them in a loud military tone type of voice, “Let’s see mother fuckers, who wants to live, tell me now,” but no one dared to answer. Everyone was looking toward the ground; they were unable to look up frozen in fear.

  A young man around 15 years of age urinated on his pants from the sheer fear while visibly trembling all over his body as if he was cold and a flood of tears ran down his cheeks. El 40 drew his handgun from his holster and without hesitation shot him in the forehead. The boy collapsed to the floor dead in an instant, while the other men also started to tremble in fear. “Who else is a fag here?” asked the El 40. No one dared to answer. “I will ask one last time mother fuckers, who wants to live?” This time he was yelling loud and clear, and suddenly all the men immediately raised their hands. “Good, we will give you a test to see how badass you all are, the ones who succeed will live, the ones who do not will get fuck.” With that he ordered several of his men who were sitting inside another SUV to bring the sledgehammers and the men gave a sledgehammer to each man.

  “Ok listen up assholes, the trick is this, we are going to pair you in twos, and you are going to fuck up each other with the sledgehammers, and the one who survives will join us in our work and you get to live, while the one who does not survive, well you get fucked,” he said sarcastically making his men laugh out loud. The passengers were stunned by the instructions from a narco who resembled more a nazi than anything else, they could not believe this was happening to them. Everyone grabbed their sledgehammer and took their position with their pair. They stared at each other with a look of pure fear. “Ok, fuck each other up,” ordered El 40.

  One of the passengers came begging to him, saying, “Please sir, I do not want to do this, I will give all my money and my home if you let us go.” El 40 looked at him straight in the eye, took his sledgehammer and said, “Okay fucking faggot, go.” As soon as the man turned to leave El 40 hit the man in the head with the sledgehammer using brutal force. The man fell to the ground bathed in blood and El 40 just went crazy hitting the man on the head with the hammer until his head was smashed in to pieces. “This is what you all have to do son of a bitches, use your balls, anyone who does not want to do this tell me now and I will fuck you up,” all men then began to fight against each other.

  The bus driver was still inside the bus with the man who had intercepted them along with all the women and children. Several armed men got on the bus and forced all the women out of the bus who they felt were the prettiest. They were yelling at them; “Move whore,” all crying and screaming as were the children. One of the armed men gave an ordered, “OK bitches, give me your young ones” and while weeping, the mothers took their children on their arms, which ranged from newborn to 8 years old. The children clung to their mothers while the sicarios snatched one at a time. They got everyone out of the bus and took them away, while some of the sicarios beat the women who remained on the bus.

  The young women that had been forced off the bus were taken to a beat-up hut where other young women were waiting there. Inside it was dark and filthy, and one could hear screams and moans. There the sicarios tore the clothes off the women and began to rape them. Inside the hut were approximately 30 women being raped, others were torn up on the floor.

  The children were taken to another location where there were tanks filled with acid, and there they threw them inside the tanks. Little by little the cries of terror began to fade in to the night. The only sound left was from the sicarios who were laughing out loud, one of them shouted to the others; “the soup is almost ready.”

  The armed man ordered the driver to turn on the bus, and directed him to drive the bus to the location where they had placed all the men who were old and weak, they were lying on the ground in a single line tied to their feet and hands. “Drive your bus over them,” ordered the sicario to the driver. The driver looked at him stunned, he could not believe what he just ordered him to do. “I said drive your bus over them or I will place you along with them so you can get fucked too idiot,” the sicario yelled at the driver who felt he had no other choice but to comply. While driving his bus, he could feel as if he was going over bumps, except the only difference was the screams from the people underneath. The women who remained inside the bus were crying uncontrollable after witnessing such horrible act. The sicarios inside the bus were just laughing. Not until he was finished driving over all of the bodies did, they order him to stop.

  It was then that the sicario shot the driver in the head and began to shoot the women who were inside the bus. The sicarios got out of the bus and set it on fire.

  Comandante 40 gathered all the Zetas and said, “that is all for fun and game for tonight cabrones. Bring me all the winners” and they brought all the men who had killed their partner with the sledgehammer and El 40 said,” Welcome to the Special Forces of the Zeta, the other military.”

  This story was sent to me by someone anonymously and we were never able to confirm the validity of the story. It may not be true, or it may be. With enough horrific carnage we had been seen coming out of Tamaulipas, this did not seem far fetch.

  Don Alejo, a True Hero

  77 year old Don Alejo Garza Tamez had chosen his ranch named "San Jose Ranch" in the state of T
amaulipas very carefully. His ranch was about 9 miles from Ciudad Victoria. The ranch was next to lake Padilla along the Corona river. Ranching was his life and grew up in the region hunting and fishing, his favorite pass time. Don Alejo grew up in Allende, Nuevo Leon, about 50 miles from Monterrey, on the foothills of the Sierra Madre.

  His ranch was in a perfect location, to do a lot of hunting and fishing in the beautiful back country. Don Alejo Garza Tamez was one of the founding members of the "Dr Maria Manuel Silva "Hunting, Shooting, and Fishing Club, located in Allende, Neuvo Leon. Growing up hunting Don Alejo had developed good marksmanship with firearms.

  This area was also the heart of Zeta country. Zetas were notorious for evicting land owners by force and converting some of these secluded ranches as safe house, training camps and killing fields.

  On November of 2013 a group of armed men suspected of being the feared Zetas came to visit Don Alejo. They wanted his ranch. They had a demand, give us your land, surrender it peacefully or they would take it by forced. The Zetas always got their way, and saw no reason why they could not this time. Do Alejo stood his ground, told them to take a hike and he would not be surrendering his land. They gave him 24 hours. They would come back and have him signed off the property to them or be killed. Don Alejo told them he would be waiting for them and they left after delivering their message.

  What happened when the criminal came back after 24 hours? Ovemex explained it on a post on Borderland Beat:

  “When Mexican Marines arrived at the San Jose Ranch, the scene was bleak. The austere main house was practically destroyed by grenades and heavy gunfire.