Bodies Found in Hidden Mass Grave: Possibly the Michoacán 20

(Acapulco, JG 4 November) Eighteen cadavers were located yesterday in a mass grave in a coconut field near the village of Tunzingo, several kilometers from Acapulco, where the previous day authorities found two men who had been shot in the style of drug gangs, together with a “narco message.” The head of the investigative police for the justice department, Fernando Monreal Leyva, said that until the bodies could be identified, he could not say that they were the missing “Michoacán 20,” but added that this was a distinct possibility.

Yesterday morning at 8 am, forensic experts of the state attorney general’s office, began the excavations, together with agents of the district attorney’s office in Coloso and the state Public Safety Department. Marines and soldiers encircled the area. The land is in the rural countryside, about a kilometer from the road between Tunzingo and San Isidro Gallieno, in the hills above Acapulco, towards the Tres Palos Lagoon. On Tuesday, two executed bodies were found in the location. The putrefying remains had been put in black plastic garbage bags. The Forensic Medical Service [coroner] removed them to perform autopsies. The grave was about 8 feet deep. The forensic excavations will continue into Thursday.

Yesterday, a video was posted in YouTube in which two men reveal that Carlos Montemayor (aka “El Charro” and “El Compadre”) was the person who ordered the kidnapping of the Michoacán 20 on September 30 from the traffic circle in Costa Azul and that they were buried in a mass grave in a rural area outside of Acapulco. The attorney general investigators identify the two as the ones found on Tuesday near the mass grave, killed execution-style. Police sources indicate that Montemayor is the substitute for Édgar Valdés Villareal (aka “La Barbie”) who was the local boss of the Beltrán Leyva drug cartel, and who was arrested in August. The video lasted 1:09 minutes. The men in the video say that the plan was to take the Michoacanos to Cuernavaca, Morelia, but things got too “hot” for them with the mobilization of police and soldiers. The bodies were thus ordered buried near the village of Tres Palos. The motive for the killings, according to the video, was that the “Michoacan Family” had taken from Beltrán Leyva the territory of Ciudad Altamirano. The two men seen in the video appear to have been beaten, and their hands are tied behind them. They were interviewed by a person off-camera, who asks why they killed the Michoacanos and where they buried them.