EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A Mexican judge has sentenced three former members of the Zetas drug cartel for their role in the murder of 72 migrants in the border state of Tamaulipas in 2010.
Martin E., Roman P. and Juvenal B. were found guilty of kidnapping, organized crime and other charges and sentenced this week to 73, 82 and 76 years in prison, respectively, the Mexican Attorney General said in a statement this week.
The charges stem from the August 2010 abduction of 58 men and 14 women from South and Central America in the city of San Fernando, Mexico, which is 85 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.
They were forcibly taken to a nearby ranch. There, “people of different nationalities were executed by members of a criminal organization,” the statement said.
An Ecuadoran survivor told Mexican authorities at the time that the Zetas wanted a ransom from the migrants. When nobody was able to pay, the migrants were told they would be hauling drugs and killing rivals for the Zetas, which they refused. They were all killed or left for dead.
Eleven alleged Zetas triggermen were sentenced last year to 50 years in prison for the massacre. The other three Zetas associates sentenced this week were identified by Mexican news media as Martin Omar Estrada de Luna, aka “El Kilo”; Roman Ricardo Palomo, aka “El Coyote”; and Juvenal Burciaga Venegas, aka “The Scorpion.”
Mexican officials said a Zetas “plaza” or regional leader named Edgar Huerta Montiel ordered the killings amid fears that the migrants might have been sent to the border to go to work for the rival Gulf cartel, Mexican authorities said.