A gruesome cellphone video captured the moment an alleged Sinaloa Cartel member ordered one of his accomplices to shoot his already dead rivals inside a garbage truck in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The images, leaked by the criminal organization itself last Friday, show 14 bodies lying on top of each other after a shootout in the town of La Concordia, 98 miles from the border with Guatemala.
The victims were still wearing their bulletproof vests and had their high-powered rifles on their bodies before one of the Sinaloa Cartel members boarded the truck.
The cartel member, whose voice is heard in the video, alleges in the video that the victims were backed by Ataulfo Lopez, a local farmer.
The man orders his henchmen to take the weapons away from the victims, but before doing so he orders one of them to shoot one of the victims.
The Chiapas State Attorney General’s Office was alerted on Saturday and sent agents to the scene, where they found a pickup truck and a dump truck blocking the road.
Mexican authorities discovered 14 bodies inside a dump truck, two more inside and two others lying on the ground next to it on Sunday after suspected members of the Sinaloa Cartel killed the victims during a shootout last Friday.
The victims, according to the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Chiapas, were hitmen linked to the Guatemala and Chiapas Cartel, an organization linked to the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, which is fighting the Sinaloa Cartel over arms, drug and migrant trafficking routes in La Concordia, a town located 80 kilometers from the border with Guatemala.
Investigators found two more bodies in the cab and two more lying on the dirt road next to the truck. Another body was found 100 metres from the truck, which had been riddled with bullets in the attack.
Authorities in Chiapas confirmed that six of the victims are Guatemalan and members of an alleged group of hitmen working under the Chiapas and Guatemala Cartel, linked to the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel.
The Guatemalan victims were identified as Mario ‘N’, Geremías ‘N’, Fredy ‘N’, Baudulio ‘N’, Óscar ‘N’ and Luis.
The government did not release their last names because of due process laws. The other 13 victims were not identified because they did not have legal documents.
While filming the gruesome images of the 14 victims inside the garbage truck, one of the alleged Sinaloa Cartel members claimed that his activities were supported by Ataulfo López (right), a local farmer whose daughter Lucero López (left), was killed on May 16 while campaigning for mayor of La Concordia, a city in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
During a Tuesday press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador linked the killings to the ongoing dispute between criminal organizations.
“What motivates this? Drug trafficking and also migrant trafficking,” López Obrador said. “Having said that, human trafficking is a route. Unfortunately, in these murders there are people from Guatemala, they are Mexicans and Guatemalans, Guatemalan brothers. We are already investigating that.”
In recent months, the Mexican army has made multiple arrests related to arms, drug and migrant trafficking in the area surrounding La Concordia.
Last week, at least 1,200 soldiers assigned to the armed forces and the National Guard were sent to increase security.
Lopez’s daughter, La Concordia mayoral candidate Lucero Lopez, 28, was one of six people shot dead at a campaign rally on May 16.
Two weeks before his death, gunmen attacked Ataulfo Lopez’s ranch and killed 10 people. Several vehicles and properties in the surrounding area were set on fire.
DailyMail.com has contacted Ataulfo Lopez for comment.
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