Relatives Beg for Help Directly Addressing Sinaloa Cartel Capos

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Proceso

   Relatives of Two Missing Policemen beg for help .......... from the Sinaloa Cartel.......In Public

By: Gloria Leticia Diaz , Jan 23, 2018
Extra Material from: El Pais, Culiacan, Sinaloa

More than 365 days have passed without knowing anything about them:  the two policemen of the municipality of Culiacán, Sinaloa, José Antonio Saavedra Ortega and Yosimar García Cruz who were kidnapped by a group of armed men on  January 23 and 26, 2017. One year after their disappearance, the official investigations do not advance. Despair and pain have led family members to ask for help directly from the Sinaloa Cartel , one of the most powerful drug trafficking structures in Mexico. 

Through a letter , released to the media, the relatives of Saavedra Ortega and García Cruz request the support of organized crime to find their loved ones: "We only ask the big bosses, the bosses of the Sinaloa Cartel and those who took our relatives for support, to help  return to us or at least tell us where we could find them. The worst torture of families is not knowing where our loved ones can be found. We appeal to their great hearts, to give us a little peace, or complete peace in finding our beloved children, our brothers, our family. "

The letter abounds about the physical and emotional wear and tear that the disappearance  of the police officers has meant for their relatives. "We come to you begging and begging your heart and your conscience to help us to end this torture, with this pain that we have been carrying for a year, we are waiting for an answer or a miracle and if you can help us with this our families will be grateful for life ", states the letter.

In the letter, the relatives of Antonio Saavedra Ortega and Yosimar García Cruz, in addition to addressing "those who took our family members," explained that they have suffered physical and mental deterioration due to the desperation of not finding the victims.

"The worst torture for families is not knowing where our loved ones are. It is a torture that we carry day after day. It has made us get sick, to decay. If only you promised not to harm families, this place of not knowing is one of the greatest damages done that can exist about our loved ones.

"The prosecution does not investigate";
So, they desperately turn to members of organized crime:

In a country that does not know the exact number of victims of forced disappearances , it is not a rarity that relatives of the disappeared take drastic measures to locate their loved ones. María Isabel Cruz, mother of Yosimar García Cruz, assures that it was the indolence of the authorities to resolve both cases, that decided the writing of this letter. 

"My folder in the Public Ministry is completely empty, there is no investigation. What I want is to rest and for my heart to rest as a mother, " she says. For that reason Garcia seeks the response of the  Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, ie,  before his arrest in January 2016. 

The infamous predawn ambush of the Military Convey in which the CDS people "rescued" the wounded "El Kevin" who was being transported to hospital in Culiacan, Sept 30, 2016.

José Antonio Saavedra Ortega and Yosimar García Cruz were part of a Culiacán police group that, on September 30, 2016, distinguished itself by supporting the military that were ambushed in that city.

Between January 21 and March 22 of last year, six members of his group were killed. Later, Yosimar and José Antonio were taken by armed men who took them from their homes ( Proceso 2138).

For María Isabel Cruz, mother of Yosimar, and for Juan Carlos Saavedra, brother of José Antonio, the cases of their relatives represent forced disappearances, since several "patrols of the municipal police were seen in the area" before they  finalized the kidnappings. Therefore, they asked the Attorney General's Office (PGR) to open the investigations.

In an interview with APRO , María Isabel Cruz,  also president of the collective "Sabuesos Guerreras",  ( Warrior Bloodhounds , a peoples collective looking for the disappeared , often led by women ) acknowledged that the "inability of the Attorney General of Sinaloa" and the desperation for not finding their family members prompted them to seek help from the narcos.

She explained that the request for support also arises from the conviction that "there is a conspiracy between the prosecution and the cartel." 

The foregoing is evident, she said, in the case of the police director of Elota, Ignacio Juárez Rojas, and his escort Alfonso Beltrán Jiménez, who disappeared on January 5 and were found dead a week later.

"How was it that the prosecutors arrived at the exact point where the police director was, that he was a military officer, if not because they have communication with those who took him away? There is no other explanation for us,  every day we have to fight with the prosecution, who does nothing, does not investigate the disappearances. In this case, surely the prosecutor , Juan José Ríos Estavillo, was pressured by the Army and, therefore, they located the military officer, " said María Isabel Cruz.

In one of García Cruz's last conversations with his mother, he told her about the disappearance of his partner José Antonio Saavedra Ortega. The municipal police officer, aged 35, was "picked up" by an armed group on the way home, in the early hours of January 23 in Culiacán. Three days later, García Cruz would share the same fate. In both cases, the police investigations pointed towards an adjustment of accounts against the agents, who had participated in key arrests against the organized crime of the State.

"We only want to be delivered"

The mother of the missing officer said that, after a year of not knowing anything, "it does not matter who took him. What interests us is that they deliver them now, find them however. If the prosecution has run out of ideas to find them, maybe the Sinaloa Cartel can help us.

"We have lived a year with our loved ones are missing. If they are also policemen, why did not they call the same ones who told them where Elota's was? Because he was a military man, they found him without investigation or anything? The prosecution acts just when they  want to, " denounced Mrs. María Isabel.

Regretfully, the woman and mother details that her son followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a policeman in Culiacán, the capital of one of the most dangerous states in Mexico. He was 28 years old, five inside the corporation and had plans to get married in the coming months.  His life plan vanished that afternoon of January 26, 2017, when a group of men pulled him at gunpoint from his home and drove him to an uncertain destination. 

From that day, García Cruz was part of a sinister statistic that registers about 30,000 people victims of forced disappearances, according to official data . "I'm realist. The soul hurts, the memory hurts, everything hurts, and I believe that I will not find him alive ",  admits María Isabel, between sobs.

For their loved ones, the reasons for these crimes now fall into the background, in the urgency of having a location on a map. A couple of connections Maria Isabel has  may know organized crime. 

"If the authorities do not help us, then we have to go to these people, from the Sinaloa Cartel, who have many contacts. We do not specify that they are guilty but since they have power in Sinaloa, we ask for their support, " said a relative of Saavedra Ortega, who has requested anonymity due to security issues. María Isabel adds: "We do not look for the guilty, nor do we accuse anyone, I do not know if they, the Sinaloa Cartel, did it or not, we are only asking for their help."

The families of these policemen agree that this letter corresponds to a need for information that the authorities have not been able to satisfy. They have waited for an answer for a year, but they have not received it despite the recent approval of the  General Law of Forced Disappearance of Persons  by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto. It is a lethargy that can not be allowed by the families of the policemen, or the groups  , Las Rastreadores and Sabuesos Guerreros, that every day go out with shovels and pickaxes to try to find  clandestine graves, or a  piece of clothing in the vacant lots of Sinaloa. 

María Isabel Cruz, Mother of García, working with her group searching for evidence of the disappeared.

According to the National Registry of Data of forced Disappearances or Missing Persons, up to October 31, 2017, in Sinaloa there were 2,819 cases.