Investigating CJNG-Controlled Kill Site of Juárez—Katarina Tracks “La Diabla" Infant Extraction Ring

From The Daily Beast:

A member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel—his stomach straining against a black sleeveless vest—is crouching over the body of a mutilated foot soldier from a rival crime group. The fallen man’s hands are bound and his chest looks like it has been torn open.

Shocking cellphone footage—captured in broad daylight—shows the hitman tearing large bites from the dead man’s heart. The cameraman continues to film as the hitman mocks the fallen sicario by pretending to offer him a taste of his no-longer-beating heart. In the background of the twisted scene, another body is partly visible, as is the shadow of someone hacking away at it.

Though cannibalism has been practiced by several organized crime groups in Mexico for a variety of reasons, including ritualistic rites, this particular incident “appears secular in orientation,” said Bunker, a research director at the consultancy firm C/O Futures LLC.

The sicario seen eating his enemy is a member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which is locked in a deadly battle with the Sinaloa Cartel—formerly run by Chapo Guzmán and now headed by Mayo Zambada—for regional dominance in Zacatecas. Other cartels like the Knights Templar, the Zetas, and the Michoacán Family have all practiced cannibalism—sometimes to terrorize rivals, to initiate recruits, or even as part of death-cult like rituals meant to weed out spies.

Dutch anthropologist Teun Voeten, who has also served as a war correspondent in Mexico, likens the growing trend to that of beheadings. Decapitations were unheard of in Mexico before 2006, according to Voeten. “After the first incidents, other crime groups started to commit beheadings as well and a vicious circle of imitation and escalation of extreme violence came into being,” Voeten told The Daily Beast. “Now there are dozens of beheadings a year in Mexico.”

He referred to the cycle of crime groups trying to outdo each other as “a sort of Olympics of cruelty and sadism” with cannibalism—which is considered one of the ultimate taboos in many cultures—being treated by the cartels as just another form of savage competition. “In the case of cannibalism occurring more frequently in Mexico, just like beheadings, it also has to do with imitation and escalating violence,” Teun said.

When it comes to escalation, the CJNG—which is led by Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes, aka “El Mencho”—has taken the practice of feasting on human flesh to a whole new level. In fact, they’ve institutionalized it as part of the mandatory curriculum at their training camps, which are known colloquially in Mexico as “Escuelas de Terror” or “terror schools.”

The country’s fastest-growing cartel sets up these camps at secret locations, typically in rural regions, to train new initiates in the use of small arms and combat tactics. Recruits are typically forced to become man-eaters during the three to four months of boot camp, experts told The Daily Beast.

“I’ve been there and there was a lot of [cannibalism],” said a member of the CJNG who agreed to speak to The Daily Beast only under the condition of anonymity. “They recruit them and then they start working on them.” The cartel insider explained that one of the reasons there are so many individuals “who want to become sicarios” is because the CJNG lures them with offers of “big bills”—but the promised signing bonus “never arrives,” the source explained.

“First they teach them how to cut people. They start by learning how to sever the extremities,” he said. This is an important skill for a future sicario, as the cutting off of fingers and toes—without letting the subject bleed out or lose consciousness—is the preferred torture tactic used to extract information from the cartel’s victims.

At the terror schools, recruits are also forced to devour the severed digits, the source said. If they pass that test, they move on to learning how to dismember entire bodies. Such expertise will prove vital later, when they are called upon to cut up corpses so as to make them easier to transport or disappear. And, as with the extremities, the cartel insider explained. the conscripts are later forced to feed on larger pieces of flesh, such as the vital organs.

The Aztecs sacrifice humans, and ate their hearts.

Mexico is returning to the Old Gods. 

AND THEN THERE'S THIS: