Ten men implicated in a notorious case involving a ranch in Jalisco where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) allegedly trained new recruits were sentenced to more than 140 years in prison on Tuesday.
On Monday, they were convicted of kidnapping and murder by a court in Jalisco.
The men, identified as members of the CJNG, were arrested at the Izaguirre Ranch in the municipality of Teuchitlán, Jalisco, last September.
In March, the Warrior Searchers of Jalisco collective found more than 150 pairs of shoes and human remains at the ranch, leading various media outlets to dub the property an “extermination camp.”
However, in late March, Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said there was no evidence that the property was “an extermination camp.”
Rather, it was “a training center” for the CJNG, he said.
Search collective calls on authorities to investigate a grisly find in Jalisco
When the 10 men were arrested at the ranch on Sept. 18, authorities found one body as well as two kidnapping victims who were being held captive. Human remains have also been found on the property, but it has not been officially determined how many people they correspond to.
The Warrior Searchers of Jalisco collective has said that its members found “17 sets of charred human bone remains” at the ranch.
Jalisco Attorney General’s Office announces lengthy prison sentence
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said that the 10 men were sentenced to 141 years and three months in prison and ordered to pay fines of almost 1.3 million pesos (about US $70,000).
The sentencing came after the men were found guilty of kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping and murder following an oral trial. Compared to many cases in Mexico, the conviction of the suspects happened very quickly. The FGE only identified the men by their first names.
It noted that they were arrested after the National Guard went to the Izaguirre Ranch after receiving a report about gunshots at the property.
The FGE said that the National Guard personnel came under attack when they arrived at the ranch and they returned fire.
At the property, the ten now-convicted criminals were arrested and the body of one person was found, the Attorney General’s Office said, adding that two kidnapping victims were freed.
One of those kidnapping victims was allegedly detained by municipal police from Tala, Jalisco, on September 16 and subsequently handed over to CJNG members.
In March, the Federal Attorney General’s Office announced that two former municipal police officers from Tala had been arrested in connection with the Izaguirre Ranch case.
The newspaper El Universal reported on Tuesday that a total of 15 people have been arrested in connection with the case.
They are the 10 men who were sentenced on Tuesday; the aforesaid ex-municipal police officers from Tala plus one more policeman from the same municipality; and two men allegedly involved in the recruitment of new members for the CJNG. The ex-police officers and alleged CJNG recruiters are awaiting trial.
Also connected to the case is a former mayor of Teuchitlán, José Ascención Murguía Santiago, who was arrested in May on organized crime and kidnapping charges and ordered to remain in preventive detention. He is alleged to have collaborated with the CJNG and received payments from the criminal group.
Murguía was mayor of Teuchitlán between 2012 and 2015 and started a second term in 2021, the year the CJNG allegedly began using the Izaguirre Ranch as a training camp. He was reelected in 2024 and was serving as mayor when he was detained in May.
With reports from Milenio, El Universal and El Financiero
