On January 22, 2021, a local resident called the Ministry of Public Security to report a vehicle fire in the remote Santa Anita sector of the city of Camargo. A common trafficking route, this area is located a few miles north of the state line of Nuevo Leon, México, in the Tamaulipas panhandle, eighteen miles southwest of La Grulla, Texas.
When police arrived, they found two vehicles burning, and nineteen dead bodies. The fetor of seared flesh hung in the desert air. Fifteen of the victims were piled in the bed of a pick-up, charred beyond recognition.1
Camargo is a city familiar with the stench of war. In 1846 the state of Tamaulipas was occupied by the US Army under the command of General Zachary Taylor. Prior to the occupation, in the early part of the 19th century, Comanche, Kiowa and Apache tribes launched raids from the area upon French, American and Spanish settlements. In recent decades, this thornscrub terrain has been a dirt-road transit route for drug smugglers and for coyotes bringing migrants, mostly from Central America, through to the northern border and across the Rio Grande into the US.
For many years, control of the thinly patrolled area has been in dispute between rival cartels, the Cartel del Golfo (CDG), the Gulf Cartel, and Noreste, the Northeast cartel. Extortion, smuggling, disappearances, beatings, sexual assaults and murders are common in the area locally known as the Devil’s Triangle, one of the most dangerous sections of an increasingly violence-laden country.
Two of the dead were identified early on as Mexican. They are presumed to be coyotes, traffickers of human cargo. Two more may also be Mexican, perhaps armed security for the traffickers. The rest, including young women, have been identified as migrants from Guatemala, most in their twenties, some as young as fifteen. All of them had hoped to make money to help their families. All of them had been shot prior to being burned.
Family members concerned that their relatives were among the dead submitted DNA samples to facilitate the investigation. On February 06, the Attorney General of the State of Tamaulipas announced the identification of nine people as being from Guatemala. A journalist from Guatemala told me on February 07, that the government of Mexico has not been completely forthcoming about what transpired and who was responsible. In Guatemala, they believe there is much more to this story.
Early reports claimed witnesses had stated that cartel members had killed the migrants at a safe house then drove the bodies to the impromptu crematorium. It seemed plausible given the history of the area and the fact that cartels have been known to kidnap people from safe houses for ransom. In addition, two of the dead were found on the ground on either side of the pickup, possibly indicating the cartels had forced the coyotes to drive the migrants to the remote section of Santa Anita and then shot them on arrival.
However, on February 03, a dozen members of a Tamaulipas State Police, eight from a Special Operations Group, were arrested for the murders, adding another layer of intrigue to those initial accounts. It’s distinctly possible these professionals were working as state-subsidized enforcers for one of the rival cartels.
Cartels are constantly battling over turf. If the proper payments are not made to the group that claims dominance in the area, the price one pays for that shortcoming is death. The massacre was a message. They could have just killed the coyotes. But this is Mexico; these are cartel rules. Everyone dies.
If state police did indeed shoot the migrants at a safe house, the four Mexicans would have been ordered to load the dead into the pickup, then drive with their asesino escorts to the remote area, at which time the four would have been killed. There were no shell casings found at the scene, but it’s much easier to clean up after shooting four than nineteen. Weapons were found burned in the trucks as well, likely belonging to the coyote escorts, who would have been outnumbered, outgunned, and lacking the training of the Special Operations Group.
Autopsies and ballistics tests should be able to confirm if the migrants had been shot somewhere other than where they were found. In fact, they did just that. Ballistics reports stated 113 bullet holes were found in the pick-up. It is therefore highly unlikely any of the victims had been shot elsewhere. The weapons used in the slaughter were high-powered military-style rifles (.223 cal. etc.). Those bullets would have damaged the pick-up at such close range. This leaves an open question. Why did so-called witnesses say the migrants were shot at a safe house? Where did this story originate? Why would they lie? Perhaps they were paid to, or told to, say what they did.
There are two more critical questions left open thus far.
First, shortly after the incident, some of the families of the migrants were notified “by the coyotes” that their relatives had met with “an accident” and were dead. If the coyotes were also dead, who made the call?
That question was answered on February 15, when Mexico news outlet, Pie De Página, reported in an excellent article that there were survivors, something that had not been reported anywhere in Mexico or internationally, as far as I can tell. Some of the migrants survived because their vehicle broke down and they were left behind to repair it. When they heard the shooting, they took cover and made their way on foot to the US. This makes me wonder if the caravan was actually intercepted by the state police or if the migrants stumbled on something they shouldn’t have seen. This notion, of course, is pure speculation, but in the desert, anything is possible.
Second, given that the shootings happened in a remote area, with no potential witnesses, how did the arresting authorities know members of the Special Operations Group were involved?
Someone knew something and squealed. But who, and why?
The Pie De Página report state that the accused officers were placed at the scene using geolocation, presumably from mobile devices, portable radios or GPS in their vehicles.
So two questions remain. How did the investigating authorities know so quickly that officers were involved and more important, why did they do it? A trial is set to begin in 5-6 months. Those questions may be answered. The defendants will remain in custody in the interim.
I can’t help but wonder if the case against the twelve will eventually be dismissed for lack of witnesses or some other vague technicality. Soon thereafter, no one will care but the families left behind in Guatemala. These indigent people will not have the resources to rally support for their cause. I hope I’m wrong.
Spec Ops and US Taxes
Let’s back up. In August of 2020 in Ciudad Victoria, the governor of Tamaulipas, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, showcased the 150 officers of the special operations group, known as the Group of Special Public Security Operations (GOPES), in a media event. He said the group was formed with the objective “to carry out special missions in matters of security and to combat organized crime groups more effectively.”
The Tamaulipas Governor’s office confirmed, “The Special Operations Group is made up of 150 elements trained and qualified to fulfill missions that require a high level of specialization and professionalization, with operational bases in the municipalities of Reynosa and Ciudad Victoria.”
The Governor’s office equipped the units with three Robinson police-turbine helicopters, drones, twenty-five armored vehicles, thermal cameras, and canines.
A number of reports have placed GOPES at the epicenter of atrocious acts, including this from El Universal and this from Washington Post. There are more.
According to our own embassy notices, we tend to train these people.
In 2007 the United States and México entered into an agreement known as the Mérida Initiative, a multi-billion-dollar aid package for Mexico allocated ostensibly to fight and dismantle the cartels. Over the ensuing years, groups such as these Tamaulipas State Police and numerous other agencies across México have been trained and accredited by multiple US organizations, including CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies). It is purported to be the gold standard of policing accreditation. To be fair, the organization has done excellent work in helping to upgrade the training and policy standards of numerous US law-enforcement agencies.
In 2019 the Sectretaría de Seguridad Publica, the Department of Public Safety for the State of Tamaulipas, was presented with the CALEA TRI-ARC Award, given to agencies who have “Concurrent CALEA accreditation for their law enforcement, public safety, and communications.” In other words, through the Mérida Initiative, American tax dollars have paid CALEA to give the State Police of Tamaulipas, of which GOPES is part, the gold standard of law enforcement accreditation.
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of CALEA in training this state entity, but one must wonder if these US entities are simply reaping the rewards of loosely monitored tax dollars to train forces so poorly vetted and deeply corrupt that the money machine really should be turned off. Certainly, extrajudicial homicide is not part of the curricula.
The Pointless Drug War
Proponents of the drug war argue for continued efforts to put away the drug smugglers and their cartel bosses. Critics argue the prohibition on drugs created the environment within which cartels have propagated and flourished. Irrespective of thoughtful arguments on both sides, killings such as that which happened in Camargo demonstrate the futility of drug prohibition if the continuance of that prohibition is predicated on the criminality of drug trafficking. The fact is, if drugs were to be made legal in the US, the cartels would find other means to bring in cash. They already do.
Petrol theft, extortion, smuggling, human trafficking, forced sex trafficking, robbery and other crimes can provide a lucrative income even if there is a dramatic cut in drug money. In addition, the legalization of drugs requires regulations, policies and sales taxes, all of which will make the price of products like weed cheaper for American (and Canadian) users to buy from the Mexican growers who have long ago established routes for transporting their bounty north to our doorsteps.
Legalizing drugs will not break the cartels. Legalization will, however, remove the criminal stigma from users and small-time dealers in the US, greatly reducing prison overcrowding and allowing science to pursue better remedies for addiction than incarceration. A long-time drug user once told me, “You can’t scare a junkie. You can’t threaten us with jail or any other kind of loss. We will seek out what we need until we have peace of mind.”
As long as that state of mind exists, there will be people who will take risks to profit from it and commit acts of violence to protect that income.
Meantime, the waves of articles condemning the Trump administration for the treatment of migrants has predictably ebbed. No members of congress are weeping at the fences. If any American is abusing migrants, it is unacceptable. But nothing reported about the plight of migrant families at our border facilities compares to the utter disregard for basic human decency and the sanctity of life manifested in the barbarism of the cartels and their state accomplices, treating migrants as freight, to be bought and sold—raping, robbing and killing them as the hour, and whimsy, dictates.
Awful conditions abound, Joe. Humans don't deserve to survive given how they treat one another.
eden