“Mexico City is not a bubble. If we don’t put a stop to it, we’re going to fall into a serious security problem,” said Miguel Amelio Gomez, a security consultant and former investigative police chief for Mexico City’s attorney-general.
The bodies were headless and covered in lime and asbestos, hidden under a thick concrete slab – young men and women not seen since they went out partying in an upscale area of Mexico’s capital nearly three months ago.
As the families of 12 missing youths settled in Saturday for an anguished wait for DNA identification, they and others said this week’s gruesome discovery at a muddy mass grave in the countryside east of Mexico City was bitter vindication for those who have said all along that the city’s top law-enforcement officials downplayed the disappearances and were at best incompetent in trying to find their loved ones.
The bodies were only found once federal investigators stepped in – after waiting impatiently for local police to make progress.
The kidnapping and murder has revealed a gangland battle for control of the lucrative drug trade in the poshest bars and nightclubs of a megalopolis that had been an oasis of calm during Mexico’s nearly seven-year drug war. The head of Mexico City police on Saturday deployed more officers and a helicopter to some of the city’s upscale districts along with the rough neighborhood of Tepito where most of the victims lived, fearing retaliatory attacks.
A federal official who helped discover the bodies said that they were found separately from their heads in what could be a frightening echo of the brutal mutilations of drug cartel victims in other parts of Mexico. The official spoke condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
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