GUADALAJARA: Ten men arrested at a farm linked to a drug cartel in the Mexican state of Jalisco were found guilty of murder and kidnapping in a high-profile trial that concluded Monday, the prosecutor’s office said.
The Izaguirre ranch allegedly served as a forced recruitment center for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the most powerful criminal gangs in the country.
The men were found guilty of “disappearance committed by private individuals” and “qualified homicide,” according to a statement from the Jalisco prosecutor’s office.
The men were arrested last September when they exchanged gunfire with police and National Guard officers.
The Guerreros Buscadores collective, a group dedicated to locating missing relatives, reported in March that hundreds of objects and items of clothing had been found on the same property, allegedly belonging to missing people who had been forced to join the cartel.
The group also stated that they found probable charred human remains and that the site had been a sort of “extermination center” for the CJNG.
But the Attorney General’s Office, which carried out the investigation, stated that it did not find evidence to confirm these allegations, although it said the farm served as a criminal training center.
Since March, about 15 other people, including a mayor and police officers, have been arrested in connection with this site.
The case has received significant press coverage in a country where more than 100,000 people have gone missing, most of them since 2006 when the federal government launched a widely criticized anti-drug military operation.
