A gloss to the patron saint of the cartels has mysteriously appeared in the Mexican city across the border from El Paso, Texas.
It is unknown who built the gray cinder block structure that houses an extensive alteration of Santa Muerte, or Holy Death, on the Camino Real Highway in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
In recent years, US law enforcement has become increasingly interested in the cloaked skeletal woman holding a globe and sickle in her hands, as images of the figure are increasingly linked to organized crime figures in both the US and Mexico.
A man arrived at the shrine built by Santa Muerte in Juarez to ask for protection as he is a truck driver in Mexico
The Santa Muerte Shrine in Juarez, Mexico is not far from the US-Mexico border and the nearby US city of El Paso, Texas
Seized by the DEA in 2011 from two women transporting over 700 grams of methamphetamine between Arizona and Minnesota, this statue of Saint Death was painted gold to represent economic power, success and prosperity
The temple of the female personification of death is located in the western part of the city.
Coincidentally, 21 bodies have been dumped there during the 14 months, according to Border report.
On Thursday, the remains of two men wrapped in blankets and bound with electric wire were the latest to be found there.
Santa Muerte has been condemned by the Catholic Church, forbidding her worship as blasphemous.
But cult-like followers have grown in recent years, including within the drug cartel.
The DEA says members of the Gulf, Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels are known to honor her.
This is highlighted in the recent arrest of a woman wanted in Mexico for cartel killings where she would dismember her victims and remove their hearts as an offering to an altar of ‘Santa Muerte’
Michelle Pineda, known as ‘La Chely, was allegedly involved in five murders and suspected of playing a role in several other killings in Juárez, the FBI said in a statement.
The 22-year-old was had illegally crossed into the United States, ran a drug trade for the ‘Artistas Asesinos’ street gang – an El Paso-based enforcement unit of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The FBI and US Border Patrol tracked her to a motel in west Texas, where she was taken into custody last month.
Mexican national Michelle Pineda was arrested by the FBI and US Border Patrol at a hotel in El Paso, Texas last Thursday. The 22-year-old is accused of five murders and participation in several others with members of the Artistas Asesinos – a gang linked to the Sinaloa cartel – in the border city of Ciudad Juárez
Federal and local agents raided the hotel where Michelle Pineda was staying and found two guns, knives, machetes and an unspecified amount of drugs, including fentanyl powder and pills
Francisco Oropesa, a 38-year-old Mexican, is on the run after shooting five people in Cleveland, Texas on Friday night.
Oropesa had several tattoos dedicated to the ‘Santa Muerte death cult’. A shrine honoring the cult was found in his room after the massacre
In another case, a Texas gunman who shot five people in 2023, including a nine-year-old, had an elaborate altar to the saint in his house.
Francisco Oropesa, 38, opened fire at his neighbors’ home in Cleveland, about 40 miles north of Houston, in May 2023 after they asked him to stop firing the gun in his backyard.
Oropesa, who is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, previously referred to as Oropeza by police, fled the scene as a nationwide manhunt unfolded.
The shrine in Oropesa’s bedroom sat atop glass shelves. Candles from the display were still burning from when the gunman opened fire on his victims.
Additionally, Oropesa had a tattoo of the death cult’s patron on one of his arms.