Plan Of Extermination at Oblatos Penitentiary

Oblatos Penitentiary in Guadalajara in the late 1970's

In the 1970's guerrila warfare was strong in Mexico. Groups like the 23rd of September communist league took hostages and planted bombs all throughout Mexico, fighting the authoritatirian PRI government. Many such guerrillas ended up at the Oblatos Penitentiary in eastern Guadalajara.

Many of the guerrillas arrested banded together in the overcrowded, squalid Jalisco State penitentiary. They slept in the same dormitories and helped each other out against agressions. Many "comrades" would be stabbed and killed in the prison's patios and hallways. The guerrillas were seen as friends by most of the inmate population but in 1977 the sinister Federal Security Directorate devised a diabolocal plan to exterminate all the guerrillas in Mexico.

The DFS would recruit goons in prison and pay them a sum of money to kill the guerrillas and stage "riots". In the faux riots, the guerrillas would be murdered, in the perfect environment. Casualties of a prison riot.

One day in September 1977 one of the guerrilla leaders imprisoned at "The Castle" as Oblatos was called, asked to speak to Warden Pedro Parra Zenteno. He denounced the conditions at the prison and asked for protection for a group of inmate trustees nicknamed "The Jackals" had been extorting the general population and abusing the inmates, stealing, beating and raping the inmates wives and sisters during visiting hour. The leader, as he spoke to the Warden, noticed 3 men in suits, sitting near the Warden, staring at him intensively. He later realized the men were DFS agents.

Warden Parra's answer was simple "Get the fuck out of my office."

The leader now realized something bad was amiss. Their days were numbered. The guerrillas took turns sleeping while others stood watch all night, in case someone should sneak in and try to stab them in their sleep. In early October 1977, the leader of the "Jackals"Reynaldo Arellano showed the guerrillas a fistful of pesos.

"Look what they've paid me to kill all of youse. Stupid boys!" he said with a cackle and walked away.

The night of October 9th, 1977, the guards at Oblatos Penitentiary were told to go home. Some guards made it to Dormitory "I" where the guerrillas stayed and out of their gun holsters, took out some shanks and gave them to the group of prisoners.

"Here you go boys, God protect all of you." said one of the Guards.

At dawn on October 10, 1977 the guerrillas noticed the Jackals and several other prisoners outside at the patio. It was 5 am and the population did not go out to the yard until late morning. Something was up. The Jackals, armed with sticks, knives, machetes and other tools rushed the guerrillas. The Guerrillas fought back and were chased all the way back to the dormitory.

Thats when the Jackals and DFS plan of extermination went awry. The general population, seeing how the Dormitory "I" boys were being attacked, counterattacked and rushed the "Jackals".

The hunters were now the hunted.

More than 500 inmates went after the Jackals, and beat them mercilessly. One locked himself in a cell. The inmates showered him and the cell with fuel and tossed a match. The Jackal trustee ended up blackened, bloody mass of charcoal.

One of the Jackals, the one responsible for the rapes of their sisters and wives, received the most cruel treatment of all. His genitals were cut off with a rusty knife and shoved in his mouth. His eyeballs were poked out of his socket and a steel bar was driven through his skull. His body was chained up to a wall for all to see.

As the bloody riot raged on at the Jalisco state penitentiary, the remaining prison staff ran for the exits. The inmates were massacring each other. One by one, the bodies of the trustees were piled up at the gate leading from the administration building to the jail. Laughing, one of the inmates would bring a wheelbarrow and dump a bloody corpse at the door.

Riot police assembled outside the prison and the Mexican military surrounded Oblatos. At night, the riot police in full gear entered with electric nightsticks and shields and quelled the riot. The rioting inmates issued a statement to radio and TV saying what they had done was not murder but "justice".

17 inmates died in the bloody riot, the worst riot in Jalisco state penal history. Dozens more were injured. Many of the inmates say the death toll was much higher, perhaps 50. The horrible riot marked the end of The Castle. Oblatos State Penitentiary was closed down and all inmates were transfered to the new Puente Grande Maximum Security prison south of the city. The Castle was bulldozed and is now a park.

One of the survivors, recalling the 1977 riot thanks the general population of Oblatos for their survival that hellish Autumn day.

"The "Rancho" (gen pop.) saved us. They served as a barrier protecting us from the Jackals. If it weren't for them, we would all be dead. The DFS would of gotten away with it."

The Murder of Cardinal Posadas Ocampo: Accident or Conspiracy?

Cardinal Posadas lies slumped in his car with his driver after the gunbattle at Guadalajara's International Airport on May 24, 1993.


On the morning of May 24th, 1993, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, the archbishop of Guadalajara and Number 2 man in Religious importance in Mexico, held mass at the diocese. He noticed three men standing in the back, who stared at him all throughout the ceremony. These are not average law abiding, church going citizens he thought. He thought right. A few hours later he would be dead, and his death would mark the beginning in one of the darkest crimes in modern Mexican history.


After the mass he ate and got dressed. Later that afternoon his driver, Pedro Perez would take him to Guadalajara's Miguel Hidalgo airport to pick up the Vatican nuncio in Mexico, Girolamo Prigione. Cardinal Posadas had interesting information to give him. Incriminating information that many in power in the government and in the countries drug mafias, did not want made public.

Parallel to these events, Jalisco Highway Policeman Jose Zamudio responded to a automobile crash on the Chapala Highway, leading from the city to the airport. Upon leaving the scene of the accident, which turned out to be nothing worse than a fender bender, he noticed a red Mercury Grand Marquis with two men inside, parked under an overpass. He circled around them, but they didnt prove too suspicious. He then decided to grab a bite to eat at one of his favorite fast food eateries, The Red Baron, located inside the domestic terminal at Miguel Hidalgo.

As he got to the airport he noticed a lot of police action. He saw four armored trucks. What looked to be several Judicial Policemen in dark uniforms, wielding assault rifles patrolling the airport. Inside, when he sat down to eat, he noticed other men, sporting buzz cuts, dressed in plaid shirts, western jeans and cowboy boots, carrying fancy looking portfolios. The portfolios didn't match the men's aspect, and these mystery men walked about, agitated and talking on two way radios. Perhaps they were undercover Judicial policemen. He thought nothing more of it and proceeded to finish his meal.

At the same time, Joaquin Guzman Loera, "El Chapo", boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, got into his custom, armored green Buick sedan, driven by his driver and 2 bodyguards. He went to the Holiday Inn where he had some business to attend, then his armored car got onto the Chapala Highway, airport bound. Guzman Loera would catch a flight to Puerto Vallarta later that day.


Joaquin Guzman "El Chapo", possible intended assassination target on May 24th


Perhaps in the wost timings ever, or perhaps a deliberate event, as these events simultaneously unfolded, "El Chapo's" one time partners turned arch enemies and rivals in the drug trade., the Arellano Felix brothers from Tijuana, were about to catch a flight, Aeromexico 110, to Tijuana.

Ramon Arellano Felix, the cartel's hitman and Number 2, along with his crew of several San Diego gang members, had been scouring the city of Guadalajara for weeks now, searching for El Chapo. The plan was to assassinate him. Since their search had been fruitless, they were now on their way home, not realizing (or realizing, depending on who you talk to) that their enemy was closer than they thought.

At the time, the Arellanos were on the plane, El Chapo had pulled into the front of the airport terminal and Cardinal Posadas' white Mercury Grand Marquis had pulled into the airport parking lot .A man wearing a airport parking lot attendant vest waved to the Cardinals car to make a left turn. A car with armed men awaited .

At that time, four men descended a tan Dodge Spirit and shouted "That's Him!" and fired a volley of AK-47 fire into the air. The men ran up to the Grand Marquis, 2 men shooting AK-47s at the driver, one man firing into the back of the car, and yet another pulling up to the passenger side door, where Cardinal Posadas had been trying to get out. The gunman held the door and shot the cardinal in the ankle then proceeded to fire 14 shots of automatic gunfire into the prelates chest, stomach and legs.

As the shooting started, El Chapo, thinking he and his men were under attack, opened fire on the gunmen, who according to witnesses were dressed in police uniforms. Several shots hit the armored car, and 2 of El Chapo's gunmen were shot dead in the parking lot. In the crossfire, a woman and her nephew fell mortally wounded at the terminal door. One of the men firing on Cardinal Posadas, then noticed a blue Buick Century, driven by the mayor of Arandas, Jalisco's chauffeur Martin Alejandro Rivas Aceves and opened fire on the cars winshield, striking Rivas in the face and killing him instantly. His car then rolled to a stop and crashed into some parked cars.

Martin Rivas Aceves lies dead in his car after the shootout. The gunmen killed all witnesses near Posadas' car.


All was pandemonium inside the airport and out. Travelers ran to and fro, trying to escape the rain of bullets that seemed to come from all directions. El Chapo Guzman by this time had sought refuge behind a Aeromexico ticket counter and fled through the baggage claims, where he and one of his men flagged down a taxi and spend off to a safe house in Zapopan. The driver of his armored car had fled the airport and had been engaged again at the airport parking lot's toll booth, which ended up shot up by the gunmen.

After approximately 10 minutes of shooting, seven people were dead. Cardinal Posadas had been hit 14 times, Pedro Perez his driver had been hit 10 times. Martin Rivas Aceves, the innocent driver; 2 of El Chapo's gunmen, Jose Rosario Beltran Medina and Ramon Flores; and Francisca Rodriguez and Manuel Vega, the 2 bystanders at the terminal door had bled to death.

Quickly after the shooting, the Airport was shut down by the Mexican Army and the Judicial Police already at the airport swarmed the crime scene, collecting bullet casings. The government later that night had said that the shooting had been the result of a "confrontation between rival drug traffickers which culminated in the accidental shooting of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo".

The Government alleged the Cardinal had been caught in the cross fire, and his car, had been confused with one of El Chapo's many luxury cars. El Chapo was reported to own a new white Mercury Grand Marquis, same as Posadas. An hour after the shooting, amazingly an unidentified man, presumibly high up in the federal government, called Mexico's Attorney General from Guadalajara and informed him that El Chapo and the Arellano Felix brothers had shot it out at the airport.

He even described how El Chapo was dressed that day. While the investigation was barely beginning, how did they know who had been involved? Why were there known drug traffickers and policemen mixed among the crowds at the airport?Many questions quickly surfaced.

The reports of a accidental shooting were quickly questioned however by Guadalajara's coroner Mario Rivas Souza who examined Posadas body and said that he had a great amount of GSR (Gun Shot Residue) on his body and clothing. This meant the gunman shot Posadas from no more than 3 feet away. No way the assassin could of confused Posadas for El Chapo. El Chapo was dark haired, 5'6, and had a mustache. Posadas Ocampo was 6'1, heavyset, more than 60 years old with glasses and gray hair, dressed in his clerical garb with a pectoral cross. Indeed Cardinal Posadas had been the target.

Then came reports from eyewitnesses that the gunmen had popped open the Grand Marquis trunk after killing Posadas and his driver, and one of the shooters had fled with what looked to be a portfolio or manila folder under his arm, while the rest of the men shot it out. What were the contents of this seemingly valuable manila folder? Contents and information that perhaps had cost the Cardinal his life and started a shoddy cover-up.

After the shooting, federal forces shut down the airport. They confiscated the airport parking lot surveillance videos, which never resurfaced again. Several of the parking lot attendants had been told to go home a half hour before the shooting, something very unusual. Then there were reports that a Mexican Attorney Generals Office jet had landed at the airport, prior to the shooting and was waiting on the tarmac until after the shooting.

There were also the reports of heavy security and police presence at the airport since early in the morning of May 24th. Who were the men in civilian clothing, looking visibly agitated and talking on walkie-talkies, seen by Officer Zamudio ? Why was there a heavy police presence at the airport since early that day yet they failed to prevent the shooting? The Mexican public cried foul and suspected a "conspiracy".

There were 3 theories of what had happened: One stated that unknown forces, perhaps in the police or government, conspired to have El Chapo and the Arellanos meet and face off at the airport so they could kill each other. Another theory was that Cardinal Posadas had been the intended target, the Arellanos and Chapo shooting it out, while a mystery 3rd person hit team approached Posadas and eliminated him, blaming his death on the shootout. The third was, that indeed Cardinal Posadas had suffered terrible luck and had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

After the murders, The Arellano Felix's issued a statement to the government, via Vatican envoy Girolamo Prigione (the very man Posadas was to pick up that fateful day at the airport), that the Arellanos HAD been at the airport, but had already boarded their plane, when the shootout started.

Chapo Guzman was arrested in June 1993, a month later and he too told authorities, that he had already been inside the terminal when he heard shooting, prompting him to flee through the baggage carousels and outside, flagging down a taxicab and leaving the airport. None of the men blamed for the act claimed responsibility. Perhaps they were scapegoats and Posadas had been slain by a mystery hit team intending to silence him.

According to some men arrested in the later years after the airport gun-battle, the whole operation had been a hit. The Arellano Felix had placed 2 Chevrolet Pick Ups full of guns, grenades and ammo, in front of the terminals before the supposed hit. The two Guzman associates killed that day, were actually prisoners of the gunmen, held in a car at the parking lot, used as bait for Chapo, or used to ID El Chapo's car. The 2 men were later disposed of and shot ,left lying the car park. The supposed Judicial Policemen at the airport were actually Arellano hit men dressed as cops waiting for the arrival of a white Grand Marquis.

When they Grand Marquis arrived they opened fire, thinking they had bumped off El Chapo. But El Chapo was in a different car, a few yards away. This action prompted El Chapos men to fire on the Cardinals aggressors, while El Chapo made his getaway. After the assassination-gone-awry, Ramon Arellano and his men ran to catch Aeromexico 110 which had been held 20 minutes for them. Upon arriving in Tijuana they were met by crooked policemen who ushered them out of the T.J. airport and provided them shelter. El Chapo too, feeling the heat, fled to Guatemala, where he was arrested a month later.
Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo - 16 years later his murder remains a mystery


Cardinal Posadas was a outspoken man. He had been arguing lately with President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He had also received death threats prior to his murder and some men had broken into his home in Tlaquepaque a few weeks before the shootings. According to some in the prelates inner circle, Cardinal Posadas had important information about the ruling party and the president's involvement with organized crime figures and shady deals. He had planned to meet with Girolamo Prigione who would not give the info to anyone in the Salinas administration, but to Pope John Paul II himself.

That never happened. The mysterious folder and contents were gone and their contents remain a matter of speculation to this day. Several airport employees and witnesses went missing or died under mysterious circumstances in the years after.The Attorney General's plane's presence at the airport and "in-the-know" information about the shooting was never clarified. Was the murder of Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo deliberate or an accident? Ordered by those high up in the government to shut him up or killed by accident by drug mafias?

16 years later, the case remains a mystery.

The Guadalajara Cartel Part III: The Abduction and Murders of Camarena and Zavala and the Fall of the Cartel

Camarena and Zavala's bodies arrive in Zamora, Michoacan after their discovery- 3/5/85

On the afternoon of February 7, 1985, Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki" Camarena Salazar left the DEA office inside the US Consulate in downtown Guadalajara and walked to his pick up truck for a lunch date with his wife.

He never made it.

Before reaching his truck, outside the Consulate, a light colored Volkswalgen 4 door and a black Grand Marquis with a siren stopped camarena. Some men, known to Camarena as Jalisco state cops got out and told "Kiki" that "El Comandante wants to see you". Camarena told the men he would have to notify his office as was protocol but the men pushed him into the car where the men threw a jacket over his head and beat him with pipes while holding him at gun point. The cars rapidly sped away and got lost in the city traffic.

Almost at the same time, Mexican Ministry of Agriculture pilot and a friend of Camarena's, Alfredo Zavala Avelars plane had touched down at the city's airport. Zavala had taken Camarena on some flights over the Bufalo ranch and other pot farms. Besides a government pilot he was a frequent DEA collaborator. As he worked at the city airport all the time, he would spy on Felix Gallardo's and Caro Quintero's planes and he would report back to Kiki.

That day he had brought home a group of businessmen from Durango and the men offered Zavala a ride home. Shortly after leaving the airport on the Chapala highway to the city, a brown Ford LTD sedan intercepted them and two men armed with AR-15 assault rifled got out and forced Zavala out and into their car. The gunmen took out the businessmen's keys out of their vehicle and threw it into a field. The car sped off with Zavala

The next day after his wife informed the DEA office he had never shown to the lunch date or to the house later that night, Enrique Camarena was declared missing. The DEA agents also quickly learned of Alfredo Zavala's abduction and soon started combing the city for the missing men. They asked the Jalisco state police for assistance and were met by Director Carlos Aceves Fernandez's stonewalling and uninterested attitude. Governor Enrique Alvarez del Castillo also did not call the Consulate and offer assistance in searching for the missing agent.

After their abductions, Camarena and Zavala were taken to Rafael Caro Quintero's home on 881 Lope de Vega street in Zapopan, a Guadalajara suburb. The plan was to have a talk with Camarena and Zavala and find out exactly how much they knew about the Cartel's operations and their partnerships with the state and Mexican government.

While Kiki and Zavala were held at the house, Ernesto Fonseca "Don Neto" came to visit and saw a lot of armed men at the house. When he was informed about Camarena's presence by Caro Quintero, he told Caro he felt ill: too many lemon spirited tequilas had triggered his allergy to citrus and he needed a nap. He would question Camarena after he awoke. After Don Neto had awoken from a drunker stupor, he noticed more armed men at the house, men he didn't recognize as his own or Caro's. By then he didn't feel like talking to Camarena at all and went home.

When he returned on the morning of February 8th, he found Camarena to be barely conscious, he had been the victim of severe torture and was near death. An unknown dead man lay in a laundry room. One of the armed men told Fonseca that the unknown dead man had been a "snitch". Seeing A US agent tortured to near death infuriated Fonseca, who reprimanded Rafael Caro and almost slapped him prompting Caro's men to raise their weapons and Fonseca's men to raise theirs. Fonseca, feeling the repercussions of what had happened and what was about to come, left the house.

Enrique Camarena had been savagely tortured for an entire day. Several times he had passed out from pain and was near death and each time he was revived by shots administered by Dr. Humberto Machain. An unknown military man interrogated Camarena for a day and a half: What did he know about Caro Quintero? Gallardo? Fonseca? What did he know about the Secretary of Defense Juan Arevalo Gardoqui?

A barrage of questions peppered with insults and beatings with fists, sticks and pipes and non fatal yet painful stabbings with ice picks, all of it being taped by his tormentors. Zavala was considered a mere snitch. He had been tortured but killed almost right away. Camarena was the one they wanted.

Sometime on the morning of February 9th, Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar was killed when a tire iron was driven into his skull. The two bodies, in their underwear, bound and gagged and placed in plastic bags were driven out to Primavera Park, a huge forest outside Guadalajara and buried in a pit.

While Camarena lay dead buried in a shallow grave outside the city, his DEA friends searched for their missing colleague. On February 8th, They requested help to Mexico City and Mexican Federal Judicial Police director Manuel Ibarra Herrera. Ibarra then told Comandante Florentino Ventura to commision Primer Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes to be in charge of the search for Camarena and Zavala. Pavon, along with Comandante Lorrabaquio were in the hills of Colima searching for some thugs and would not be available until the following morning

Comandante Pavon Reyes and his contingent of Federales arrived in Guadalajara from Colima state on the morning of February 9th. They had picked up a trace from Felix Gallardo and Caro Quintero saying Felix would deliver money to the Guadalajara airport. The Federales and several DEA agent sped to the airport to catch the narcos.

Upon arriving at Miguel Hidalgo airport, the Federales saw several armed men surrounding a private Falcon business jet preparing for takeoff. After a brief standoff between the armed strangers and the Federales, Comandante Pavon Reyes met with the man seemingly in charge, a tall mustachioed man with thick curly hair, in black cowboy gear and wearing a lot of gold. He flashed Pavon a badge and the two men walked around the jet and talked, the man in black looking back and smiling at the DEA agents who watched incredulously.

Comandante Pavon soon shook hands with the man. Several of Pavon's men also walked over and greeted the man in black. When questioned by the DEA agents who thought surely the man was a trafficker, Pavon told them that the man had been Pedro Sanchez Parra, not a drug trafficker but a DFS agent. His badge had identified him as such.

As the Falcon jet taxied out to the runway, the man in black and wearing gold stuck out his head from the plane's open door and waved an AK-47 to the Federales and DEA agent and shouted: "Next time my children, bring better weapons, not toys!" The man then waved a champagne bottle, took a swig and went back inside the jet and closed the door. The man was Rafael Caro Quintero.

Rafael Caro Quintero had promised Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes, 60 million pesos and had fled Guadalajara to Culiacan where he picked up his teenage girlfriend, Sara Cosio Martinez, niece of a prominent Jalisco PRI politician. They later flew to Caborca, Sonora where Rafael had a huge ranch and waited for the heat to die down.

The entire month of February the investigation went nowhere and Camarena was nowhere to be found. Seeing as how Comandante Pavon had probably already been compromised, the DEA agents asked Mexico City to send top Comandante Florentino Ventura Gutierrez to aid them in the search for their missing comrade. Federales chief Ibarra Herrera denied their request. Pavon's raids on empty mansions and abandoned ranches yielded no results. The arrest of Tomas Morlett Borquez, a crooked cop, was deemed pointless as he and 2 others were quickly released.

A man resembling the bearded and be-speckled Morlett had been seen by eyewitnesses in Lopez Cotija, a Guadalajara suburb inside a black car, beating a man in the back seat around the time of Camarena's abduction. The witness had then later been visited by the same man resembling Morlett and told to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen. After Morlett's release, a photograph of Enrique Camarena had been found at a home belonging to Miguel Felix Gallardo, plates of half eaten food and drinks bearing testament of people who had left the house in a hurry right before the arrival of the Federales. Someone in the Feds was tipping off the traffickers. The DEA agents grew more and more frustrated.

On February 28th, Comandante Pavon Reyes produced a letter, postmarked in Los Angeles, CA, saying that the letter informed his office that Agent Camarena was being held at a ranch in neighboring Michoacan state. Thousands of notes and letters had been sent, all of them phony. One said Camarena was being held in Yahualica, Jalisco. Another that Camarena was being held in an abandoned mine in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Pavon however, seemed eager to pursue this particular lead. He informed the DEA agents they would raid El Mareno ranch near La Angostura, Michoacan at 9 am 2 days later on March 2nd, pending further investigation and surveillance. The DEA agents were invited by Pavon to participate in the raid.

At 9 am on March 2nd the DEA agents were surprised and angered to find out the Federales, led by Comandante Alfonso Velazquez Hernandez had left the city to Michoacan three hours prior. The Americans quickly hopped on cars and sped to El Mareno ranch, a two hour drive from Guadalajara.

Upon arriving at El Mareno they were met with a horrible scene. Six people were dead. According to the Federales, as they arrived at the ranch they were met with gunfire from the people living at the ranch. Federal Agent Manuel Esquivel had received 13 shots from an AR-15 and the Federales were forced to open fire and engage the attackers.

What followed was a half hour shoot out in which all 5 members of the Bravo family had been killed. Manuel Bravo Cervantes, owner of the ranch, had shot at the Federales. His wife Maria Luisa Segura Vazquez along with their handicapped 11 year old son Rigoberto and their 2 grown sons Hugo and Manuel Bravo Segura had all been armed and refused to surrender and thus had to be killed as well. 2 women were in custody along with 2 other men, believed to be Mrs Bravo's brothers, accused of having arriving in a stolen car full of ammunition.

The four survivors of the massacre at El Mareno told Michoacan state authorities and the news media that the Federales had cut down the family in cold blood. The DEA agents, piecing together the events according to the women, who were the now widows of Hugo and Manuel and a local villager boys eyewitness account the real story went something like this:

The Jalisco Federales had arrived in Michoacan without informing the Michoacan state authorities and had raided El Mareno early the morning of March 2nd. Rigoberto Bravo Segura, the mentally retarded 11 year old son of the Bravos, who slept in a downstairs room, was awakened by men breaking into the house. He shouted to his father, who slept upstairs that armed men were breaking in. The armed men, who were Federales, took Rigoberto hostage, pointed a gun to his head and demanded that Manuel Bravo surrender and come down.

Manuel Bravo, not believing them to be real Federales, saying that he had many enemies, asked to speak to police in the nearby city of Zamora or Vistahermosa, officers he knew personally. His request was denied. Bravo then shot at the men and engaged them in a brief shootout in which Agent Esquivel was killed, probably by friendly fire, before Bravo finally surrendered and came down with his wife. Manuel Bravo and his wife were then promptly shot in cold blood, Maria Luisa receiving shots in the back as she tried to flee. Rigoberto was also killed, his body left on the patio.

Upon hearing the shooting, Maria Luisa's brothers, who lived on the property, had called Hugo and Manuel to their homes in Zamora and the two men raced to El Mareno to aid their parents and brother. They also had their children spending the night there with their favorite uncle, Rigoberto. The two men left to El Mareno while their wives summoned help at the Michoacan state police office. Hugo and Manuel arrived only to find their parents and brother dead and were soon captured by the Federales and slapped around only to be also shot in the head point blank. When their wives arrived with the Michoacan state cops, the women were arrested and the cops told to lay down their arms.

Quickly after the massacre, Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes produced some ammo, some shot guns and assault rifles along with cocaine supposedly found at the ranch. The guns' incomplete serial numbers were given to the US agents when they requested them and the drugs seemed planted at the scene. The whole scene looked like a hit rather than a police action. The Bravo Segura family was billed in the media as a family of drug dealing cop killing kidnappers. A search of the lemon orchards of El Mareno, where the anonymous letter said Camarena would be found buried was delayed pending Agent Esquivel's funeral and burial.

On March 4th, Michoacan state governor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who just so happened to be a distant relative of Manuel Bravo Cervantes, received a call from an official in Tanhuato, Michoacan informing him that the La Barca- Zamora highway next to El Mareno ranch was again shut down by Jalisco state authorities. The Guadalajara anti-riot police was at El Mareno and men were digging in the orchards looking for Camarena. Once again Jalisco state police had done another unauthorized search at the ranch away from their jurisdiction.

A very angry Governor landed in his helicopter near El Mareno and was not allowed entrance by the Federales, prompting him to voice a complain to the Jalisco state government. The search at El Mareno turned up nothing.

On the afternoon of March 5th, 1985, a rancher walking on a footpath next to El Mareno ranch was assaulted by the strong odor of decomposing flesh and flies buzzing around. He followed his nose to a field, a few yards from the entrance to El Mareno, and found two plastic sacks, one with rotted human legs jutting out. The other had a head sticking out, its mouth wide open and face grimacing in horror. He quickly ran to the nearby village of La Angostura and summoned the constable who hopped on a tractor and headed to to the scene of the grisly discovery only to find several villagers already crowding the bodies and trampling the crime scene. The bodies were placed on a the bed of a pick up truck and transported to the coroners office in Zamora.

A few hours after the discovery of the two badly decomposed and unrecognizable bodies, the Mexican media was already saying that the dead were indeed Enrique Camarena and Alfredo Zavala. The DEA agents in Guadalajara found out through the television about the find, no one had informed them and once again they raced for Zamora. Upon arrival at the Zamora town square, they were met by a huge crowd of people, curious to glimpse at the body of the dead American agent. The US forensic experts after several hours of autopsy and using dental records, finally ID'd the bodies as those of Camarena and Zavala. Both men had been brutally tortured and buried somewhere else and dumped at El Mareno. Both had been dead about a month.

The body dump went awry. The man delivering the bodies to be planted at El Mareno was surely late and seeing the activity at El Mareno, could not dump the bodies in the orchard and opted for leaving the corpses near the footpath near the ranch. The night of March 5th, Comandante Pavon Reyes reportedly told Comandante Everardo Ochoa Bernal to hurry to Zamora, Michoacan because "Camarena would soon be found". Upon arriving in Zamora, Comandante Ochoa found that the bodies had already been found, picked up and transferred to the town morgue.

After the discovery of the bodies, Comandante Pavon Reyes was arrested by Comandante Florentino Ventura who was now in charge of the Camarena investigation on charges of corruption, bribery and obstruction of justice. Ventura also rounded up 13 city and state cops, one of whom, Gabriel Gonzalez, died during interrogation. Ventura said he had died of a hemorrhage, Gonzalez's wife said he had been beaten to death.

Quickly he was piecing together that Camarena had been abducted by local cops paid off by Caro Quintero and Fonseca Carrillo. All of the cops arrested denounced torture and denied knowing anything about the Camarena abduction.

In early April, DEA and the Federales picked up a call from Rafael Caro Quintero's teenage girlfriend Sara Cosio to her parents. The call came from San Jose, Costa Rica. Florentino Ventura and his team quickly flew to Costa Rica and on April 4th, 1985 raided Quinta La California near the airport in San Jose and arrested a group of Mexican nationals and Sara Cosio. One of the man ID'd as Marco Antonio Rios Valenzuela was indeed none other than Rafael Caro Quintero. Caro and his cronies were put on two Mexico Attorney General jets and flown to Mexico City in less than a day, one of Costa Rica's fastest deportations ever. Sara Cosio was returned back to her parents and Cosio announced to the press she had not been abducted but was in love with the married drug lord and was pregnant.

By coincidence three days later, on April 7th, cops responding to a bar fight in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, followed a group of thugs to a villa and were engaged in a shootout. The municipal cops quickly subdued the thugs and found money and weapons at the home, that belonged to Candelario Ramos, the chief of police of Ameca, Jalisco. They also found a lazy eyed old man who ID'd himself as Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Don Neto.

Don Neto and his henchmen were put on Norte de Sonora buses, escorted by 14 Army trucks full of soldiers armed to the teeth and driven to La Mojonera air force base in Zapopan where a plane awaited them to take them to prison in Mexico City.

In Mexico City, both Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca were tortured and forced to confess by Florentino Ventura's men. They were forced to sign confessions but later recanted when they were paraded before the news cameras. Yes, the two men alleged, they were drug traffickers, but they knew nothing of the abduction and murder of the American agent and his pilot. Fonseca contended that he and Caro had been at 881 Lope de Vega, but had left, at the same time a group of unknown armed men arrived at the house. What happened to Camarena after that was unknown to them.

A married Caro Quintero regaled the press with stories about his love for his teenage girlfriend Sara Cosio whom her family had alleged, had been kidnapped by the Sinaloan in March. the Caro-Cosio love affair became media fodder for months. The Mexican public grew enamored with the country boy from La Noria, who had made millions before his 29th birthday and helped out the poor.

"I love to help out the country people, because they are a pure and noble people as I am, and as Ernesto (Fonseca) and his people are, we do things for them the government doesnt do in 10 years. We do it not to get recognition, but because it makes us feel good to help them" Caro told the press after his arrest, while Fonseca clowned around with a pair of sunglasses and flashed photographers a peace sign
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Both men were convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. There the duo shared a living area designed for 600 prisoners, and made their own penthouse, complete with nice beds, TV's VCRs, liquor, music and good food. They didnt have to wear a prisoners uniform they could wear what they wanted. During their four year stay at Reclusorio Norte, their stay was a good one. Every year on his birthday, Caro Quintero would bring the finest Sinaloan bands to play for him and his friends at the prison all with the director's blessing.

Javier Barba Hernandez, the Cartel's lawyer turned gangster was shot down by soldiers in Mazatlan in November 1987. Tomas Morlett Borquez, a suspect in the Camarena kidnapping was slain outside a Matamoros bar in 1988. Comandantes Pavon Reyes and Alfonso Velazquez, responsible for the disastrous "raid" at El Mareno were both sent to jail for 25 years.

The head of the DFS and a possible Camarena interrogator and torturer, Antonio Zorrilla Perez was also sent to jail after being arrested in Spain. Ramon Mata Ballesteros, Felix Gallardos Honduran partner was jailed in 1986 and extradited to the US where he now incarcerated in Colorado's Super Max penitentiary.

Dr Humberto Machain, responsible for keeping Camarena alive during his brutal interrogation was also arrested in Guadalajara and illegally transported to the US by American agents. Don Ruben Zuno Arce was also tricked into entering the US where he was arrested for his alleged role in the Camarena kidnapping. He was sentenced to life in prison in San Diego. To this day he maintains his innocence.

On September 17, 1988 Comandante Florentino Ventura, who arrested Rafael Caro Quintero was found shot to death at his Mexico City home along with his wife and wife's friend. Authorities said Ventura went into a cocaine fueled rage and shot his wife and her friend before turning the gun on himself. Others say its was the narcos' revenge from behind bars.

Miguel Felix Gallardo, the cocaine kingpin and co founder of the Guadalajara Cartel was betrayed by his friend Comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, Ventura's successor on April 8, 1989 and taken into custody at his home in Zapopan, Jalisco. Felix Gallardo also denied any participation in the Camarena kidnapping and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Manuel Salcido Uzeta, "Cochiloco", Kingpin of Mazatlan and last leader of the Guadalajara cartel was ambushed and shot to death on October 9th, 1991 by a 8 man hit team at a red light on Obsidiana Street in Guadalajara. He, his daughter and his driver were shot more than 80 times. He reportedly pulled out a grenade to fend off his attackers with but was killed before he could throw it at them.

Juan Jose Esparragoza "El Azul" was arrested in the late 80s and imprisoned in Reclusorio Sur and was freed in 1992. With the ex leaders of the Guadalajara cartel in prison or dead, he left and partnered up with Ismael Zambada and others where he is now considered one of the leaders of the violent and infamous Sinaloa cartel made up of descendants and proteges of those who ran the old Guadalajara cartel. "El Azul" keeps an extremely low profile, not much is known about his life or modern day activities

The Camarena kidnapping and murder and its messy aftermath sealed the fate for the once powerful Guadalajara Cartel. Its remnants are now seen as coming together and forming the poweful Sinaloan Alliance, the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Felix Gallardo protege turned nemesis Joaquin Guzman Loera "El Chapo"

What was then a "Mans Business" made up by a few peasants from Sinaloa with a lot of business savvy, later turned into a ultra violent billion dollar industry that claims the lives the innocent men, women and children every day in Mexico. Criminals and Law Enforcement officials alike fall dead every day, victims of a seemingly never ending drug war where broken rival factions of a once strong united alliance, fight it out each day for control of Mexican territory.

The Guadalajara Cartel Part I: Birth of Organized Crime in Mexico

criIn the early 20th century, the rural areas of the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango were desolate lands. Small villages dotted the Sierra Madre, isolated from civilization. Access to these backwater hamlets were by horse or by mule and trips that would take hours now by car, would take days back then. Their source of life was growing beans and vegetables. If it was a good crop, they would eat. If it was a bad one, they would starve. To eat meat, was a luxury.

After World War I, the Mexican government approached these humble ranchers with a proposition: Grow Opium Poppy on these fertile lands. The poppy is used to make Morphine, which was in dire need for the United States soldiers who came back wounded or the ones who just came back addicted. Poppy however, is also used to create something else much more nefarious and sinister:

Heroin.

The hill folk of the Sierra Madre who during Prohibition made some extra cash bootlegging liquor and sending it up north to the Hooch starved Gringo, now started to grow the Poppy flower. The mountain man of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango soon learned that out of the sticky Opium gum, you can do this, and do that and presto: you have Heroin.

Another notorious herb grew happy and green in these fertile and warm climates: Marijuana. Soon the old bean farmers and bootleggers started growing opium and marijuana and through their kin, either by blood or by marriage, started smuggling the stuff north. Many of the entrepreneurial hillbillies made contacts with infamous mob bosses in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and all the border cities. Lucky Luciano and Bugsy were some of the famous clients of the Mexicans.

For years throughout the 1940s and 1950's up till the sixties, the boys from Sinaloa grew the pot and sold the pot up north. These poor peasants soon found themselves rolling in dough and left their poor crumbling houses in the mountain towns of Badiraguato and surrounding villages and migrated to the Sinaloa state capital city of Culiacan.

There the noveau riche drug kingpins bought ostentatious mansions, rolled around in armored Lincolns and Fords, shot it out with rivals at weddings and nightclubs, and held lavish parties that lasted days, with the finest Sinaloan brass bands of the time livening up the fiestas.

In the 60's Pedro Aviles Perez, born in Durango but Sinaloan at heart, was the man who controlled the drug trade in Mexico. He was untouchable and said to be a friend of Ol' Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra himself. Pedrito would be the man who would serve as mentor to many and most of Mexicos future notorious mafia bosses. Many of the men responsible for the illegal drug trade in Mexico now were snot nosed kids running errands for Aviles when he was king of "contrabandistas".

Many others ran the trade in the state of Sinaloa, violence was rare but not unheard of in Culiacan, all the men worked together, and if not, they at least respected each other. It was a man's business, families and women were not touched. That was taboo. Lamberto Quintero Paez was one such man, as well as Roberto Alvarado, Ruben Cabada and Lalo Fernandez.

Around 1975, the Mexican government was growing weary of the monster it had created. These Narcos were getting out of hand and something had to be done. They had too much power, and too much money, they ran the state of Sinaloa and much of the north like feudal warlords. Governors and Mayors were friends of the traffickers. The Mexican Government came up with "Operacion Condor".

Hundreds of soldiers and federal agents descended upon the "Golden Triangle" of Sinaloa, Durango and Sinaloa, beating up the farmers, whether they were pot farmers or legitamite, it didn't matter. They sprayed herbicides all over the lands so now not even beans would grow. Many were tortured and killed, thrown out of helicopters or simply "made disappeared" by the brutal soldiers. The brutal campaign lasted three years.

In January 1976, drug kingpin Lamberto Quintero was killed by rivals in El Salado. On September 15, 1978, big boss Pedro Aviles was set up and ambushed by Federales outside a roadblock in Culiacan. The heat was growing for the Sinaloan mafia with the violence and Operation Condor, they could no longer stay in Culiacan. They had to set up a new base of operations:

Guadalajara.

"Guadalajara has disappeared": The 1992 Guadalajara Sewer Explosions

Cars lay buried in the ruins of a blown up street in Guadalajara after the Apr. 22, 1992 explosions.

When they built the Colector Intermedio del Oriente under Reforma district in the southeastern part of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, they found out the sewer line would hit several subway tunnels. Rather than over, against gravity they would build the line UNDER the tunnels. Years later these errors in engineering would prove catastrophic to the city of 4 million people.

The strong smell of gasoline or paint thinner wafted over the streets of Analco neighborhood in the Reforma district of the city. The April heat was hitting the city and it seemed that the hotter the day, the stronger the smell. Residents would find the smell would come from the water faucets and even the toilets. What was the source of the smell?

Several residents called the city and complained.On April 20th, They called the city's water and sewer department, SIAPA. Something needed to be done, the children were getting dizzy and it was hard to sleep at night. The smell of gas was strong.

On April 21st, SIAPA department workers were sent to inspect the streets of the Analco neighborhood and that night firefighters from the Guadalajara Fire Dept. found the source to be the sewers. The mysterious gasoline smell was coming from under the streets. The firemen opted for leaving a few manholes open and letting the fumes dissipate in the air rather than build up underground. Further inspection of the sewers were scheduled for the next morning, April 22nd.

The city goverment decided to not order an evacuation. That would probably just cause panic among the thousands of residents of Reforma. Telling them their neighborhood was a ticking time bomb was foolish. Such panic would cost the city money. Trinidad Lopez Rivas, the city's fire chief decided not to order an evacuation pending further inspections of the city's sewer system. In March 1983, Sierra Morena Street had exploded, causing dozens of injuries. A nearby clinic had illegally dumped chemicals into the sewer causing the blast. Would there be a repeat of that event?

It was 9 am on April 22, 1992. People drove to work, rode the city buses to and fro and children walked the streets. Vendors sold their food and drinks in little stalls on street corners in the neighborhood, a typical spring day. A group of firefighters descended into the sewer in order to find out where all the gasoline was leaking from.

At 10 am, the search was called off. At that time, white steam was seen pouring out of storm drains and manhole covers were popping, shooting high into the air. The firefighters had not yet reached the surface when five minutes later, a spark, perhaps from a lit cigarette, or a pilot light, or the spark of a manhole cover being dropped into place, unleashed a huge explosion. The ground under Gante and Aldama Street exploded in a huge cloud of dust, hurling cars, buses and trucks into the air like toys and tearing people apart. Eight kilometers of street exploded, one after another. Gante Street exploded. 20th of November St. exploded, Violeta St. exploded, Rio Nilo St. exploded, Doctor R. Michel St. exploded, Corregidora St. exploded, ten huge blasts, ripping apart the streets, and blowing up the adobe homes lining them, killing almost everyone who were on the streets at the time.


A city bus full of people fell into one of the trenches, its passengers killed or seriously injured. A big rig landed on top of a house. A pickup truck fell on a crowd of people pleasantly eating a snack at a taco stand. A Telmex telephone employee working on a telephone line was killed, his body cut in two. Another headless body, hung grotesquely entangled on a telephone pole. A enormous mushroom cloud of dust rose over downtown Guadalajara and the explosions sounded like thunder. Stunned witnesses wondered what was happening in the direction of the Reforma district.

The emergency calls started pouring into the Red Cross stations in the city. A bus full of people had been swallowed up by a hole in the street. A whole street had exploded. Many people were trapped inside their collapsed homes. There were bloody, dirt covered bodies everywhere. There had been in explosion. Something ghastly had happened in Analco.

Rescue workers and ambulances were met by dozens of people, screaming and crying running for their lives away from Gante St. "The city is blowing up!" one man cried. They wanted to get away from the streets that were erupting beneath them. Radio stations were reporting what had happened in an alarmist sense:

"Guadalajara has practically disappeared"


For an hour after 10:05 am, more explosions rocked the area. Calzada Gonzalez Gallo blew up. Calzada del Ejercito also exploded. Sometime after 12 noon, residents of the city, in fear, popped open the manhole covers to let the fumes dissipate in case there was any gas under their streets. At 1:38 PM, several neighborhoods including Mexicaltzingo, 8 de Julio, Polanco and La Nogalera as well as downtown Tlaquepaque, a Guadalajara suburb were evacuated as a precaution. Residents of the other three sectors of the city, Juarez, Libertad and Hidalgo, for fear of the entire city exploding in a mass cataclysm, hopped in their cars and fled the city to other towns or "to the hills."

Residents of the Reforma borough got to work right away, digging out the survivors and carrying them on improvised stretchers; a wooden plank or a broken door. The broken bodies of men women and children were pulled out, covered in dust and some horribly mutilated and taken to a nearby stadium for identification. Ambulances drove in and out of the neighborhood all morning and afternoon. Miles of streets had exploded, following the Colector Intermedio del Oriente sewer line. 20 city blocks had blown up. But what had caused the explosion? Residents had complained of a gas smell. Now the city and survivors were asking: Why was nothing done?


Jalisco state Governor Guillermo Cossio Vidaurri flew over the ravaged area. It looked as if Guadalajara had been bombed. Where streets, sidewalks and trees once were, now it was a jagged deep, debris filled trench full of rubble and cars flipped upside down or buried as if by a pissed off giant. He saw swarms of people, soldiers and police crowding over the collapsed buildings, rescuing the injured and bringing out the dead. Who was responsible for the disaster? By late evening on April 22, 180 bodies had been recovered from rubble, hundreds more injured and more than 10,000 were made homeless.

A hasty investigation quickly blamed the disaster on the accumulation of volatile Hexane gas in the sewers. Leaked Hexane mixed with Methane gas, a byproduct of human waste had caused the sewers to catastrophically explode. The mayor of Guadalajara Enrique Dau Flores quickly lay blame on a cooking oil factory La Central, which was near the destroyed neighborhood.

The manager of La Central told the media "I refuse to be a scapegoat in this tragedy. There has been no leaks here at the plant". Checks conducted in the blown up sewers found large pools of gasoline. The residents had complained of a "gasoline" smell not Hexane, which has no smell .President Carlos Salinas de Gortari toured the devastated area and gave an ultimatum: "The people responsable for the disaster must be found in 72 hours".

The people didnt believe the city's explanation that La Central was to blame. Further investigation found the soil around a Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico's Oil monopoly gas distribution plant, saturated with gasoline. The ground was wet and the stench of gasoline was strong. The gasoline pipeline from the huge Salamanca refinery in Guanajuato state to the city of Guadalajara ran nearby. The plant was also blocks away from there the explosions originated.

Two pipelines had been laid together, one from one kind of metal and another from another type. This caused a chemical reaction between the two, causing them to rust and form holes. One pipe held gasoline, the other water. The gasoline leaked into the sewer through cracks in the tunnels and the pools of gasoline formed undetected for weeks. Rather than the gasoline flowing freely in the sewer they were backed up by a U shaped plug that went under a Subway tunnel. The gasoline flowed but the fumes were stuck with nowhere to go. That is when the residents began to notice the smell of gasoline. The sewers were pressurized bombs, only needing a tiny spark to set them off.

In all, more than 230 people officially died in the sewer blasts with hundreds more injured. Not surprisingly as tends to happen when a disaster happens in Mexico, the survivors dispute the final death toll. Many recall seeing hundreds upon hundreds of dead, perhaps the death toll being 1,000. Photographs were published of dead bodies bearing the numbers 923 and 700, but the goverment atributted these numbers to the erroneous double counting of cadavers and bad coordination among the places storing the bodies.

Several city government officials were jailed for not ordering an evacuation of the Reforma district and trying to cover up what was going on. A tragedy that could of been avoided. Mayor Enrique Dau Flores resigned as well as Jalisco Governor Guillermo Cossio Vidaurri.

Now everything is rebuilt in Reforma, with a few empty fields where buildings once stood, as the sole reminders of that fateful April morning. People now tell macabre tales of seeing the ghosts of the victims late at night, screaming and crying, haunting the neighborhood where they died instantly all those years ago, when bad planning, negligence and stupidity all combined to produce the worst disaster in Guadalajara history and one of the worst industrial disasters in Mexico in recent memory.