Five childhood friends and students aged between 19 and 22, have been m¥rdered by a dr¥g cartel after being lured to meet gang members under the pretense of a job offer and then ordered to join their ranks.
According to El Pais, the victims were identified by their relatives as Roberto Olmeda, Diego Lara, Uriel Galvan, Jaime Martinez and Dante Cedillo.
It is reported that they were last heard of on August 11 in the town of Lagos de Moreno I. Mexico. They were next seen bound by tape, kneeling on the ground and surrounded by gang members, with one of them seen bludgeoning and apparently d£capitating his friend.
Witnesses told journalist Hector De Mauleon that 10 armed men seized them from their car in San Miguel and forc£d them into a white pickup and a van with blacked-out windows.
It is reported that the victims who were duct-taped, b£at£n, §t+bbed and b+headed in a horrifically graphic video that made its rounds online this week, sought employment as private security, met a contact in town and were not seen again until the video surfaced, according to El Universal.
According to El Universal journalist Carlos Arrieta, the men were deceived into a meeting with the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel. They hoped to recruit the victims into their ranks and k#lled them after they refused.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mexican authorities located the property where the photo and video were allegedly filmed and found four b¥rned and dEcapitated bodies. The bodies were badly b¥rned and had not yet been identified, according to prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco. However, the bodies were found inside a building near where the young men were k#napped on Friday and later photographed in c#ptivity.
A fifth body was found by police inside a b¥rned-out car in a nearby area. During a news briefing Wednesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the k#llings as
“very regrettable,’ ” while saying very little else about them. He mentioned federal prosecutors were taking over the case from Jalisco authorities as dr¥g cartels were involved.
