It is known as the elite enforcer wing of the Juárez Cartel, and the DEA estimates some 70 percent of the cocaine that enters the U.S. And that the second assault against the other two SUVs came at about 11:00 that same morning, and happened on the same rural highway, but 11 miles away from the scene of the first attack.īunker’s description of a poorly trained, ragtag bunch doesn’t meet the description of La Línea, however. Those investigators claim there was an initial attack on one vehicle at 9:40, near the remote village of Bavispe. But a special commission ordered by Mexican President López Obrador tells a different story. Mexico's secretary of security, Alfonso Durazo, believes the women set out at around 9:40 a.m. However there are glaring discrepancies in the official reports. “It is assumed that this cell, which was sent to stop any incursion of a criminal group from Los Salazar into Chihuahua, the attacks on the LeBaron family," said Homero Mendoza Ruíz, chief of staff of Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat, in a press conference. And then the LeBaron convoy blundered into the trap traveling in SUVs, the preferred mode of transport for sicarios (hitmen) as well. While retreating from Agua Prieta, La Línea allegedly set up sentinels to intercept any pursuers. border, the same day the LeBaron family was assaulted. There had been a turf battle between the two groups in the town of Agua Prieta, on the U.S. “In April of 2018, more than 100 members of El Barzón invaded the LeBaron family ranch at La Mora to protest the diminished water table.” This time the massacre was attributed to a dust up between a group called La Línea, which is affiliated with the Juárez Cartel, and a rival faction of the Sinaloa Cartel called Los Salazar. Instead another band was blamed, although the “cartel confusion” narrative carried over. It wasn’t the drunken gangster with the unfaithful wife after all. Breakaway upstart Jaguar Márquez was characterized in news reports as “an alcoholic cuckold,” and one member of the LeBaron family spoke of possibly forming autodefensas to track him down.īut then the official version changed. The press ran with the story, and it seemed the case was solved.Įl Jaguar’s outfit is a splinter cell of the Sinaloa Cartel, formerly run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and now headed by a loose coalition between his sons and former lieutenant Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada (more on him later). The theory was that the group’s leader Arvizu “El Jaguar” Márquez had ordered the hit after mistaking the Mormon caravan for that of another gang. In the immediate aftermath of the killings, Mexican officials announced that an organized crime group called Los Jaguares was responsible. The murder of innocent women and children would be a grotesque escalation-and without precedent-but to understand the broader context of the killings in that arid landscape the issue of water, as well as the issue of drug trafficking, should be taken into account. The conflict reportedly has continued since then. Both sides appear to have acted violently-including an incident last year in which the farmers stormed one of the LeBaron ranches and the LeBarons opened fire on them. Several of the victims reportedly were shot at point-blank range.Īlso, we now know the family had been engaged in a long-running land dispute with local farmers over water rights. Yet the LeBarons claim they’d been under threat from criminal bands in the area and they have no doubt they were targeted deliberately. The official version of the story, as told by Mexican authorities, is that it was an accident involving rival drug gangs. Less than halfway there they were ambushed by unknown gunmen on a lonely stretch of road in that rugged scrubland. 4, three SUVs carrying 17 family members set out from their La Mora compound in Sonora for another ranch property in Galeana, in neighboring Chihuahua. “The Barzón water dispute connection is the theory du jour in the Mexican press.”
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