POLICE SAY KIDNAPPINGS, EXECUTIONS RELATED TO INTERNAL DRUG WAR

by Jeff Barnet, Staff Writer

The kidnapping and execution of seven Juárez residents during the last few days of December 1997 were probably all related to drug trafficking operations, according to agents from the Homicide Group of the Chihuahua state police (PJE). The seven victims were abducted from five different locations in the city between December 26 and 30. Their bodies were discovered in the trunks of abandoned vehicles in various Juárez neighborhoods between December 27 and January 1. Five of the seven were victims of torture and strangulation, a pattern police say fits 19 homicides committed in Juárez in 1997. The final two victims were brutally tortured with icepicks before death by asphyxiation, according to autopsies conducted by the Department of Medicine of the State's Attorney office. Homicide agents believe that the kind of torture used on these seven and other execution victims in Juárez in 1997 is "used to extract confidential information."

Agents from the PJE Homicide Group quoted in the Diario de Juárez hypothesize that there are at least two factions vying for power of the cocaine Cartel de Juárez, and that these kidnappings and torture deaths are "meant as a message to one of the organizations disputing control of the Cartel de Juárez." The PJE statement marks the first time that Mexican authorities have made a specific hypothesis about the cause for the violence in Juárez, which erupted August 3 with the execution slaying of six people at the downtown Max-Fim restaurant and has continued unabated since. Earlier, in September, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) declared that "inside the [Juárez] cartel exists a very real war for power." However, the Mexican federal police (PGR), PJE, and other police authorities have, until now, taken a more conservative position, saying only that there is more to investigate before drawing any conclusions.

As of January 2, 1998, the Diario de Juárez claimed that there had been 54 drug-related executions in the city since the death of Cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes in Mexico City July 4. Fifty-one of those executions occurred in calendar year 1997, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the 217 reported homicides in Juarez for the year. The Juárez newspaper attributed 51 executions and 100 disappearances to drug-related violence in 1997. However, other sources, including the New York Times and the human rights organization Amnesty International, believe some of the disappearances are the work of off-duty and former police agents possibly working for either the government (at any number of levels) or the cartel. (See feature story, "Death Squads Have Disappeared 90 in Juárez: New York Times," in November 1, 1997 FNS.)

PJE agents said they were confident that they could establish a motive for the seven kidnappings and executions between December 26 and January 1. Police investigators discovered that the seven victims all knew each other. According to friends and family of the victims, the kidnapped all knew Rudolfo Becerra Raygoza, 38, a Juárez auto salesman and one of the seven kidnapped and later found dead.

The first two victims were Alberto Escápite Hernández, 36, and Rosa Gardea Sandoval, 30, a married couple kidnapped sometime between Friday night December 26 and dawn Saturday morning December 27. The couple were found, tortured and strangled, their hands and feet bound by adhesive tape, in the back of an abandoned vehicle in the neighborhood of Los Nogales on the afternoon of the 27th. Police discovered their three-year-old son Javier Escápite Gardea unharmed in another vehicle. According to the couple's other two children, 11 and 13 years of age, Escápite, Gardea and their son left their house in the Misiones neighborhood Friday afternoon to go shopping downtown. Police said the couple was "middle class, but had no known means of work." PJE agents said their bodies were found near the property of presumed drugtrafficker Rafael Muñoz Talavera, according to a report in the Diario De Juárez. A police spokesperson told reporters on December 27 that "the crime is connected to narcotrafficking operations."

Soon after police found the bodies of the married couple, two more kidnappings were reported in the city December 27. Auto salesman Becerra was abducted while playing in a park with a child in the Misiones neighborhood. The child reported that he saw three armed men kidnap Becerra at 5:45 p.m. Two hours later, witnesses reported that three armed men driving a Grand Marquis violently kidnapped two men from a Ford Fiesta at the intersection of Calles Juan Escutia and Mejia. The car belonged to Becerra's brother, Héctor Becerra Raygoza; however, Héctor Becerra was safe at home at the time of the kidnapping. Abducted were Ricardo Flores Montoya, 24, and César Padilla Flores, 34.

Between Sunday night, December 29, and dawn Monday, December 30, two more men disappeared. Carlos Cué Ramírez, 22, was taken from his home in the Ex Hipódromo neighborhood by eight armed men, according to witnesses. Carlos Ruiz Medina, 19, a college student who had quit his studies to take a month-long trip to the United States, was abducted from his car, police said.

The bodies of the five kidnapped men were discovered in the trunks of abandoned vehicles in various locations around the city on December 30, December 31, and January 1. Becerra and Ricardo Flores Montoya were found dead in the trunk of a car in the colonia Margaritas on the afternoon of the December 30. According to PJE agents, the two had been severely tortured and strangled in the same manner as the married couple found December 27. The PJE also said the car in which they were found was stolen from El Paso, Texas.

The tortured and strangled body of the next victim, Carlos Cué Ramírez, was discovered the night of the 30th, again in the trunk of an abandoned vehicle, this one left near the Córdova-Américas housing development.

The bodies of the final two victims were also found strangled in the trunks of abandoned vehicles, however Carlos Ruiz Medina, discovered December 31 near colonia Fidel Avila, and César Padilla Flores, found January 1 south of Avenida Manuel Gomez Morin, had both also been stabbed repeatedly with icepicks and beaten with blunt objects about their faces, necks, and upper bodies.

Judicial authorities repeated earlier assertions that the seven people who disappeared between the 26th and the 30th "were a group of friends" and alleged that "they had been involved in illicit acts," according to a report in the Diario de Juárez.

The preponderance of kidnapping, torture, and trunk-of-car body disposal crimes has forced police to create new slang words, says the Diario de Juárez. In police argot, a kidnapping victim is a "levantan." A group of disappeared people are referred to as "levantadas." A body found in the trunk of car, however, is a "encajuelado."

A special report in the Diario de Juárez January 2 denounced the wave of killings as "acts of blind revenge." PJE Homicide Group agents noted that the seven victims were tortured and disposed of in a manner similar to the August slayings of alleged drugtrafficker Fernando Cueva Córboda and four doctors who worked for Guernika and San Rafael Hospitals.

Source: Diario de Juárez