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October 28,
2004 "It's pure garbage," Norma Andrade said of the second federal report on the Ciudad Juárez femicides made by Special Investigator María López Urbina. Andrade, whose daughter's body was found in an empty lot in February 2001, also said that, "They haven't arrested my daughter's killer and as long as they have nothing, I'll continue saying it." Family members of femicide victims and NGOs throughout Chihuahua were also disappointed with López's prior report. On June 3, 2004, López gave her first report to an audience that included Mexican President Vicente Fox and federal Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. At that time López said that there were no indicators of serial crimes among the cases that had been analyzed. For that first report López and her team examined 50 of the then 307 femicides that had occurred in Cd. Juárez since 1993. López repeatedly dodged questions about whether any of the 50 cases were from among the more than 100 which fit a serial pattern. More Chihuahua law enforcement agents to be investigated During her second report López stated that slightly more that half of the 307 cases have now been analyzed. She also said that another 49 Chihuahua law enforcement officials will be investigated for alleged negligence in investigating the crimes. López also stated that a DNA bank had been created which led to the positive identification of four bodies. She added that scholarships have been given to the children of victims and that families receive various sorts of aid from the Instituto Chihuahuense de la Mujer (Chihuahua Women's Institute). Bus driver gets 50 years Cd. Juárez bus driver Victor García Uribe was given a 50 year sentence on October 13 by a Chihuahua judge for the rape and murder of eight women whose bodies were found in a cotton field in November 2001. Judge Gustavo Muñoz Gamboa said that when he was reaching his verdict he could not take into account the torture that García Uribe allegedly suffered at the hands of state police. The judge stated there was no proof of the torture in the case. García Uribe and Gustavo González Meza, who was arrested with García Uribe, both said that they were tortured into confessing to crimes they did not commit. González Meza died in jail in February 2003 after routine hernia surgery (for an injury he said he sustained during his torture). Prior to that, González's lawyer Mario Escobedo Anaya was shot to death by state police when they said they mistook him for a drug trafficker. Escobedo's death was investigated but no charges were made against the agents involved despite the fact that they appeared to have shot their own vehicle to make it look like Escobedo had fired at them. FBI chief raises Juárez femicides with Fox in closed door meeting The director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, had an unannounced visit with President Fox, Mexican Attorney General Macedo de la Concha, and other law enforcement officials on Wednesday, October 27, 2004. The group discussed terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and other law enforcement issues. Among the topics brought up was the Cd. Juárez serial killings, according to an Associated Press article. It was Mueller's first visit as FBI director to Mexico. He was appointed as FBI director on September 4, 2001. US citizen allegedly raped by federal officer in Cd. Juárez A US woman detained in Cd. Juárez for allegedly driving a stolen car into the country was allegedly raped by a federal law enforcement official on October 26, 2004. The 23 year old woman said that the attack occurred inside the Cd. Juárez offices of the Mexican federal Attorney General's Office. Detained for the rape is Johva David Hidalgo Tovar, an agent with the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (Federal Investigations Agency, AFI). The US consulate in Cd. Juárez was notified of the case and the woman was released on bond. Sources: The body of a still unidentified young woman was found on Saturday, October 23, 2004 in the Chihuahua City neighborhood of Granjas Cerro Grande. The victim is estimated to have been between 14 and 16 years old at the time of her death. Autopsy revealed that the victim had been beaten to death and her neck had been broken. Due to the victim’s state of partial undress it is believed that she was raped but forensic experts have yet to complete the necessary tests to confirm this. Ramón Martínez Morales, age 24, was arrested in relation to the case. He and six other men were seen by neighbors forcing the young woman into an abandoned house were they allegedly assaulted her. Martínez has denied the charges against him saying that he and the other men were in a bar at the time of the incident. However, when taken back to the bar, no one recognized Martínez. An article in the Chihuahua City newspaper El Pueblo stated that three of the six men seen with Martínez had left the city and gone to work in the United States. None of the six men have been apprehended. It may perhaps be seen as progress that a suspect in a Chihuahua City femicide case was presented to the press claiming that he was innocent instead of saying that he had been tortured into confessing to the murder. David Meza, who was arrested for the murder of his cousin Neyra Azucena Cervantes, told the press that he was tortured into falsely confessing to her murder. Ulises Perzabal and Cynthia Kiecker, a US citizen, are currently standing trial for the death of Viviana Rayas and both have said that they were tortured into confessing to crimes they did not commit. In the Azucena Cervantes/Meza case it was recently revealed by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California that although DNA testing they conducted confirmed the identity of Neyra Azucena Cervantes’ body, their forensic experts found that, based on photos, the skull and teeth could not have been hers. Photos of the skull that are with the body show a bullet hole in the skull. In the confession that Meza was allegedly forced to sign, it is said that he shot his cousin in the head. In the Rayas case, the witnesses against Perzabal and
Kiecker recanted their stories saying that they were tortured and/or
threatened into making false accusations by state police. Despite the deployment of over 1,000 federal law enforcement agents to Tamaulipas cities including Reynosa, an unidentified young woman was murdered and her body was tossed in the city center without anyone being apprehended. Although press reports are unclear, the young woman was found on either Saturday, October 23 or early Sunday, October 24. Found with her hands and feet bound and bearing signs of torture, the victim had been strangled and had a black bag over her head. A forensic report found that the young woman had been raped. It was also noted that the victim’s body had been written on with lip stick. Because of this last fact, police are considering motives linked to drugs and to a potentially abusive romantic relationship. The unidentified woman was found to be very malnourished and authorities believe that this may indicate that the young woman had a substance abuse problem. The Tamaulipas on-line news source EnLínea Directa
also mentioned the possibility that the city is confronting a possible
serial killer. Sources: October 7,
2004 The body of a young woman was found on Wednesday, October 6, 2004 in Ciudad Juárez. The woman is still unidentified but is estimated to be 25 years old. An unidentified source in law enforcement said that the woman had been raped and was strangled to death. The woman has long brown hair and brown skin. She was wearing blue jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that said "Grupo Chicago". The woman has a mole on her right cheek and an old scar from a Cesarean section. According to the Chihuahua City newspaper El Heraldo, after news of the discovery was aired on television, many parents went to see if the body was that of a missing family member. The head of the special state taskforce that is investigating the Cd. Juárez femicides, Angela Talavera Lozoya, and the federal investigator into the killings, María López Urbina, both were at the crime scene according to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario. While López was at the scene, an area resident on a hilltop yelled down to her saying that she did not want her neighborhood to became another Lomas de Poleo. Lomas de Poleo is where many bodies were discovered in the 1990s. A separate story in El Diario stated that López will reveal more results of the federal investigation on October 25. However, before that time, she wants to meet with the new governor of Chihuahua, José Reyes Baeza, to inform him about the specifics of her work. Sources: September 30,
2004 An analysis of Chihuahua's 60th Congress published by the Red Ciudadana (Citizens Network), a Chihuahua organization dedicated to promoting efficiency and transparency in government, gave the legislative body a near failing grade on the issues of transparency and access to information. The report also criticized the cost of the legislature and the fact that many elected officials are "career politicians". According to Red Ciudadana's report, the 60th Congress cost the state nearly 500 million pesos (approximately US$44 million) which is 0.5% of Chihuahua's annual budget. This money included a monthly salary of approximately 47,000 pesos per month (US$4,140) for each of the 33 members of Congress. A part of the 500 million pesos was used to purchase a building as well, the Bancomer Tower, although no reason for this purchase was given in the report. The report also slammed the high cost of audits for other state institutions ordered by the Congress. Each audit cost on average of 392,479 pesos and 244 audits were performed. Disappointing to Red Ciudadana was that in no instance was wasted or misappropriated money recovered. The organization also failed to find any examples of employees that had been administratively punished or legally prosecuted for financial discrepancies. Red Ciudadana found it difficult to get information on the activities of the 60th Congress which ends on October 1. On three occasions the organization requested information from the Congress and its best result was an incomplete reply. Red Ciudadana gave the state legislature a near failing grade in terms of transparency and issues related to access to information. When looking at the composition of the Congress, Red Ciudadana found that the majority of members are career politicians. Proof of this, according to the organization, is that of the 33 deputies (equivalent to representatives in the US), ten left the legislature (8 PRI deputies and 2 PAN deputies) to campaign for new offices. Red Ciudadana also indicated that two more members of the PAN should have left office since they are participating in political campaigns. Under campaign laws, candidates can not hold an elected position while running a campaign. Red Ciudadana also criticized the attendance record of deputies and noted that some committees should not have held meetings when they were not able to draw in sufficient members for a quorum. Source: Heraldo de Chihuahua (Chihuahua City), September 30 2004. September 21,
2004 The Arreola brothers are said to lead the Chihuahua cell of a major international drug trafficking operation that brings in drugs from Venezuela and Colombia and moves money back to these nations. Toro One Although federal officials did not state which illegal drugs the men are accused of trafficking, previous Toro operations targeted the cocaine trade. The initial operation Toro was interrupted on December 12, 2003 when two men were detained in Chihuahua City where they were allegedly tapping phone lines. One of the men, Alejandro González Montiel, is said to have identified himself as an agent with Mexico's Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (Federal Investigations Agency, AFI). On the list of phone lines to monitor was the number of Jesús José Solís Silva who was then the attorney general of Chihuahua. Both men were later released and federal officials made it known that their arrests very nearly disrupted a major operation against international cocaine dealers. As stated in an August 2004 article in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario, the initial operation Toro still lead to the arrest of one of its primary targets: a Colombian known as José Fernando Arias Pulgarín or José Antonio Arias Salas, the alleged head of the organization that supplied cocaine to the Juárez cartel. Arias was arrested on December 20, 2003 in Mexico City along with alleged accomplices. Toro Two Operation Toro 2 took place on August 19, 2004 when federal officials searched fourteen properties in the border states of Chihuahua, Tamualipas and Coahuila in search of Ramón Solís Núñez, the nephew of the previous Chihuahua attorney general, Jesús José Solís Silva. Jesús José Solís Silva resigned from the Chihuahua attorney general’s office (Procuraduría General de Justicia en el Estado, PGJE) in early March 2004 after being accused of protecting drug traffickers. El Diario also noted in August 2004 that the federal government’s anti-organized crime division, SIEDO, is said to have an order to find and question Ramón Solís Núñez. SIEDO ties Ramón Solís to the Colombian cocaine suppliers of the Juárez cartel. Toro Three Seized in Operation Toro 3 were rifles, pistols, communication devices, a money-counting machine, 13 vehicles and 30 trailers. Ten properties in Chihuahua related to the Arreola's activities were seized as well as 1,800 head of cattle. Source: El Diario, September 21, 2004. Article
by Javier Saucedo Alcalá. A trust fund will distribute 25 million pesos (approximately US$2.2 million) among many families whose daughters or female relatives have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez since 1993. Money will only go to families related to cases that are being examined by the combined federal and Chihuahua investigation into the Juárez femicides. According to María López Urbina, the federal special investigator, families of women who were murdered because of involvement in drug trafficking will not receive funds from the trust. Currently, the combined federal and state investigation is looking into 307 cases. If the 25 million pesos were divided equally among these families, this would mean that each would receive 81,433 pesos (approximately US$7,143). However, in a September 15, 2004 article in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, there was no mention of whether the money would be distributed evenly among all 307 families. López told El Diario that the 25 million pesos are already available. The government is still working on how to transfer the funds and needs to complete some socio-economic studies before the money can go to victims' families. Talks also need to be held with the victims mothers and the Instituto Chihuahuense de la Mujer (Chihuahua Women's Institute, Ichimu), López said. Despite the fact that both Chihuahua City and Cd. Juárez saw the murder of young women associated with their respective ECCO computer schools, the federal and state investigation has not been extended to Chihuahua City. Because the Chihuahua City cases are not part of the special investigation it would seem that families there will not be compensated for their losses. Source: El Diario, September 15, 2004. Article by Javier Saucedo Alcalá. September 2,
2004 Piñón told the Chihuahua City newspaper El Heraldo de Chihuahua that he learned from the US's FBI and DEA of the triple alliance facing the Juárez cartel . Piñón noted that his office and the state police which belong to it do not have special intelligence units which would investigate such matters. To help stop the violence in Cd. Juárez, Piñón says he has had meetings with federal law enforcement authorities to organize joint operations for the city. According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, two bodies found in Ciudad Juárez on Thursday, September 2, 2004 pushed the city's homicide count to 48 for the year. The figure for all of 2003 was 34. There were 55 homicides in 2002, and 58 in 2001. The twelve bodies found buried behind a house in Juárez in early 2004 are not included in the 2004 count, El Diario noted. It is not known if the state attorney general's office includes them among the statistics from the previous year. Sources: |