One suspected gang member detained by law enforcement told investigators, "I know that police and transit officials in San Fernando help the Zetas organization, because rather than take detainees to the Pentágano, which is to say the municipal jail, they would deliver them to the Zetas," and that the officers "receive money from the organization to collaborate," the case file from Mexico's authorities reveals.
The US-based National Security Archive published on Monday the declassified document, obtained from the office of the Mexican attorney general, which details the extent of police participation in the kidnappings and massacres of migrants reported to have been making their way to the Mexican border with Texas.
The documents' appearance comes after Mexican media published reports this month alleging that Mexico's federal police had knowledge of the execution in September of 43 students carried out by local police and a drug trafficking cartel, according to The Huffington Post. "We have information that proves the federal government knew what was happening in the moment it was happening, and participated in it," a Spanish reporter told the Post.
Among the crimes detailed in the files published on Monday is the killing of 72 migrants who were taken off an intercity bus line in the city of San Fernando in August 2010. The US Consulate in Matamoros reports that a total of 36 grave sites with 145 bodies were later found in the San Fernando area. "If the facts surrounding the San Fernando case seem eerily familiar, it is because they follow a pattern seen over and over again in recent years," the report stated, noting the similarities with the case of the students' disappearance.
