What is known about the disappearance of five friends in a dangerous area of ​​Jalisco, a case that shocks Mexico

Last Friday, August 11, Diego Alberto Lara Santoyo, Roberto Carlos Olmeda Cuéllar, Uriel Galván, Jaime Alfonso Martínez Miranda and Dante Cedillo Hernández, who are between 19 and 21 years old, were reported missing in the city of Lagos de Moreno, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. They are all friends and had gone to a fair aboard two cars.

Until this Wednesday, the two vehicles of the young people had already been found, they were burned. In the trunk of one of them there were, presumably, charred human remains.

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Also, on Monday night a creepy photo and video began to circulate on social networks where the five missing young people are seen. They are beaten and kneeling inside a house.

This is what is known about the case that shocks Mexico.

The five missing youths. (Commission for the Search of Persons of the State of Jalisco).

Authorities have said the youths attended a popular fair in the city of Lakes of Moreno, located in the Jalisco Highlands.

According to the Commission for the Search for Persons of the State of Jaliscothe five youths were last seen in the san miguel colony, around midnight on Friday. In that place they agreed to meet a sixth friend; however, they never made it to the appointment. This sixth person communicated with relatives of the young people and with the authorities to report the disappearance.

According to the authorities, Before they disappeared, they were in a tourist place known as the Mirador de la Santa Cruz, located in Lagos de Moreno. There, the police found remains of blood and some belts, according to the state attorney general Luis Joaquín Méndez Ruiz.

The El Financiero portal reported that on Friday one of the youths, Diego Alberto Lara Santoyo, he contacted his family to say he was on his way home.

On Sunday, August 13, the case was massively reported by the press. That same day, the authorities intensified the search.

That Sunday, the Jalisco security authorities reported the discovery of one of the young people’s cars. Prosecutor Méndez later confirmed that it was the vehicle where they were last seen during your visit to the fair.

The second vehicle was found in the early hours of Tuesday, August 15. It was burning on the Encarnación de Díaz-Lagos de Moreno highway. In addition, remains that would be human were found in the trunk.

The youths’ vehicles were found burnt. (Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office).

“This vehicle has the characteristics of another of the victims’ vehicles. In fact, the plate that matches is located in the place with the series that we have reported by the relatives”said the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office.

Near this place, the police raided a farm, where they found weapons, drugs, cell phones, a motorcycle and vehicle license plates with reports of theft. It is being investigated whether said property is related to the case of the disappeared.

On Monday, a photo was published on social networks showing five young men gagged, hands back and kneeling. Some have bloody faces.

Besides, a video of one minute and 35 seconds appeared what was it recorded with a cell phone, where it is seen that there are two bloody bodies that are face down. A person with shorts and a black polo shirt also appears who hits someone who matches the physical description of the young man. Dante Cedillo Hernandez, according to Image News. She then stabs him and slits his throat.

Imagen Noticias also maintains that the clothing of the person who hits and stabs dante matches the outfit Jaime Alfonso Martinez Miranda, another of the missing youths. Jaime apparently follows the orders of another person who asks him to hit his friend, first with his bare hands, then with stones, and then with a brick on the head. Finally, a guy gives him a machete to kill Dante.

The macabre video is in the possession of the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office. The authority said on Tuesday that relatives of the young people believe that the people who appear gagged and beaten in the images could be their relatives.

“That video, that information that is published on a social network is already part of the investigation that is being exhausted by the Special Prosecutor for Missing Personswe are going to exhaust all lines of investigation,” said prosecutor Méndez at a press conference.

The Special Prosecutor for Missing Persons, Blanca Jaqueline Trujillo Cuevas, maintained that “the families were summoned, they were informed of the content of this video, of this photograph that regardless of whether we are working to analyze its origin, the veracity of the information. It was important that they know.”

“They tell us in a preliminary way that they consider there is a high probability that the young people who appear in the photograph are their relatives. However, given this consideration, we are going to continue working on search and location, but an interview was obtained from them in this regard where they consider that it is indeed about them,” added Trujillo.

Homicides in Mexico since 1997. (AFP).

According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the strategic security general of Jalisco, Ricardo Sánchez, referred to some “unprecedented events” that have occurred in the state in recent weeks that could be linked to the participation of organized crime: a disappearance related to to a clandestine operations center (in the metropolitan municipality of Guadalajara), an attack with improvised explosives and the disappearance of the five young people in Lakes of Moreno.

The general indicated that the evidence collected in recent days could give indications of the participation of criminal groups. He announced that they will ask the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) to bring the case of the five disappeared young people, since it has jurisdiction over the crime of organized crime.

One of the possible lines of investigation is that the young people were kidnapped by members of the ‘MZ’, a criminal organization that would be owned by the drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, and that is related to the Sinaloa Cartel, that the control of the territory is disputed with the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG)reported El Financiero.

Disappeared in Mexico. (AFP).

Source: Elcomercio