From the Archives: Child Sicarios

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Prensa, Archivos Historicos

        

[I will be periodically translating and publishing stories from La Prensa's "Secret Police Archives". These are older stories that are worth another look. Here is a past post: Public Enemy #1 -El Profe]

With the devil inside

 

He was born, how should I know, because he wanted the destiny God wanted. I don't know why it was ... he understood that life is a game that is very difficult to play, that child does not know love.
- EL TRI

by Alfredo Sosa 

The events came to light in December 2010, and you, dear reader, found out in the pages of this newspaper LA PRENSA about the nauseating and sinister story of "El Ponchis", El Niño Sicario.

The files reveal that "El Ponchis" was born with the devil inside, separated from the love of his parents since birth. He never liked school, his teachers were bad influences and in the streets he learned to be a thief. At the age of 11 he carried out his first crime, robbed a business and was arrested.

 
It was on December 3 of that year, at night, when elements of the Mexican Army detained Édgar Jiménez Lugo, aged 14, at the Mariano Matamoros airport in Cuernavaca, when he intended to board a plane bound for Tijuana in the company of his sister Elizabeth. In fact, "El Ponchis" was already being tracked due to a series of videos put on social media networks, where he appeared torturing enemies of the South Pacific Cartel (the organization that recruited him) and confessed that he had killed at least four people.

Édgar Jiménez was born in San Diego, California, in a sordid environment. In his home there was little love from his parents, who were arrested several times in the United States for selling drugs.  

His history of abandonment caused his grandmother Carmen Solís Gil to take him in at the age of five, offering affection and a home in the small town of Tejalpa, in the State of Morelos.

But Édgar was accustomed to solitude and the streets, where he was easy prey of the South Pacific Cartel when he was barely 11 years old. In his own words "Ponchis" said that he was "raised" by Jesús Hernández Radilla, "El Negro", leader of this criminal organization and linked to the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, which offered him "work and a good pay." It did not take a lot for the little kid to be convinced. 

It was then that "El Ponchis" began his descent into the underworld ranks of drug trafficking. There, he was trained to torture, be tortured, and consume drugs, a situation to which he was already accustomed, since his childhood was surrounded by these delights.

 

Broken Childhood

                         

Withdrawn, lonely and marginalized; always adrift, he was recruited by organized crime, who trained him to cause death and pain.

by Alfredo Sosa 

In the Office of the Deputy Attorney General for Specialized Investigation in Organized Crime (SIEDO), in Mexico City, "El Ponchis" suffered the torment of having to remember the crimes to which, he said, he was forced to commit. Then he went from being a perpetrator to being a victim and "spilled the beans."

 
With a gesture of resentment, he revealed to prosecutors that he was assigned to torture, decapitate, and cut off the genitals of rivals or that he would be "kidnapped" by orders of "El Negro." And he told some details: "I cut their throats. I felt bad doing it, but they forced me. They told me that if I didn't they would kill me. I just cut their throats, but I never went to hang them on bridges, that never," he said.

 
He commented that he was forced to smoke marijuana to perform these tasks, that he had murdered only four people and they paid him 2,500 pesos a week, while his eyes were lost in nothingness. However, other members of the South Pacific Cartel detained months ago by the Mexican Army implicated him in executing more than a hundred people.

 
Édgar Jiménez, called El Niño Sicario since his capture, told the authorities that "El Negro" had several safe houses in Jiutepec, where they murdered and buried some of his victims, in addition to using them as warehouses to store weapons and vehicles. They also charged "derecho de piso" to several business owners; among them, two brothels: El Fantasy and 40 Grados, places where members of the CPS met each other.

 
In the videos uploaded to the internet where the criminal activities of "El Ponchis" were known, the kid wore AK 47 "cuernos de chivo" with several spare cartridges, backpacks with marijuana packages, various types of knives and blades, bulletproof vests, and in other images he appeared torturing several subjects gagged with their hands and feet tied together. In short, he was a child who played at being criminal.

The night "El Ponchis" was arrested, his sisters were also caught: Lina Érika and Elizabeth Jiménez, whom they nicknamed "Las Chabelas". The two girls also belonged to the criminal organization and confessed that they were only responsible for getting rid of the bodies of the victims. They were going to throw them on isolated roads where it would be difficult to find them and the rats would devour them. However, members of the CPS captured days later said that Elizabeth had a love affair with "El Negro" and that, in addition, "Las Chabelas" served as a bait to seduce subjects who would later be recruited or killed.

 
After the deliberation of the evidence, between the Justice Prosecutor for Adolescents and the defense attorney of "El Ponchis", the judge of the Unitarian Court issued a sentence of three years in prison for the four confessed murders, the maximum sentence for a minor of his age. His sisters were also ordered to be formally imprisoned for crimes such as kidnapping, murder, illegal carrying of arms, and criminal association.

 
Édgar, El Niño Sicario, served his sentence at the Center for the Execution of Precautionary Measures for Adolescents (Cempla), in the State of Morelos. There, they tried to help him with psychological assistance, in addition to teaching him to read and write.

 
Ana Virginia Pérez, director of the reformatory, commented: "He is a non-aggressive young man in the sense of attacking people with whom he has contact ... he is a rather withdrawn young man, who speaks very little and has a hard time telling his story." She noted, however, that he lacked time in achieving a full reintegration, due to the tragic and complex nature of his case.

 
In the Cempla, more than 100 inmates were detained, all admitted for crimes under federal jurisdiction, such as: intentional homicide, kidnapping, possession of a firearm, and organized crime. 
There, "El Ponchis" took to playing soccer and on the field showed an ability to dribble past players and showed talent as a goal scorer. In this moment, Edgar allowed himself to dream, and he was surely happy, despite the hell he lived.

 

A COUNTRY IN ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES

In this way, "El Ponchis" came out little by little from the depths of the abyss, which had fallen on him since he was very young. His ascent came on the morning of November 26, 2013, the day he was released under a strong security operation, after serving his sentence. The young man made a request before leaving; "That the federal government give him protection so that the South Pacific Cartel would not re-recruit him, or in his case, kill him." A convoy of the Mexican Army transferred him to the International Airport of Mexico City, where he took a flight to San Antonio, Texas; or rather, towards freedom, where his family expected him.

 
The tragic case of "El Ponchis," dear reader, arose in the context of the war against drug trafficking declared by the then President of the Republic, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa; a conflict that by the end of 2010, left a balance of 30,000 dead and dozens of clandestine graves throughout the country; it also caused several minors to be recruited by organized crime and their souls to agonize under the flurry of crime.

THE STRANGE CASE OF "LA PEQUE" BLOODY AND NECROPHILIC SICARIA 

                                

"Do you prefer that I cut your left or right ear ? Tell me so I know which to put anesthesia on." It's one of the questions she asked a kidnap victim who was finally returned to his home with both ears mutilated.

 

by Carlos Álvarez

 
In mid-July 2016, the news came of a young sicaria who was called "La Peque", an unusual character. With her scant sixty-five meters, this woman -barely over twenty years old- became famous not only for belonging to a criminal organization, but for committing the worst crimes imaginable.

 
In the annals of the criminal history of Mexico this case stands out and deserves a page, due to the brutality and sordidness with which this unconscionable homicidal person's career developed, with her multiple and merciless tortures, and the desire to quench her thirst for blood.

 
Juana, -like Madonna- simply Juana, was born in the State of Hidalgo. It seems that her childhood ended early, because at the age of 15 she became pregnant by a man who was 20 years older than her. As a result, she gave birth to a son and, to be able to pay her expenses, she had to go through several jobs, both legal -waitress, deliverywoman, and cook; and illegal -prostitute, halcone, and assassin.

 
It was around 2008 when she began to interact with people from one of the most murderous criminal organizations that exist. At that time she was working in a bar where they started collecting fees. In this situation, the owner offered the girls as rent money.

After that, she went to a couple of parties organized by criminals, but she did not join -or was not immediately won over. In 2010 she was almost randomly recruited.

 
It happened when she went to her hometown to visit one of her childhood friends. She suddenly found herself with the local plaza leader, who had been mentioned by her friend, and Juana, for accompanying her, ended up being recruited.

At first she was entrusted with several simple tasks and during this period witnessed some executions; one in particular disturbed her, fearing for her life. On that occasion, she had to watch a man's skull get smashed with a mallet. As she witnessed this, she began to imagine that perhaps her life would end in the same way.

 
However, it took little time for her to be entrusted with more complex tasks, such as kidnapping, whom she anesthetized and then cut the ears off of, as a warning to relatives, in case they refused to pay the ransom. And later, when she became familiar with the violence, she began to feel pleasure, to cause excitement, because she discovered that she enjoyed the dynamics of her work that required her to torture people.

 
Later, when she sunk completely into the atrocious world of the slaughters, it almost became an obsession to kill, not only as an order but as a deranged impulse to threaten one's life, to such a degree that she began to manifest twisted and aberrant behavior.

 
It was thus that "La Peque" became in charge of the unconscionable work of beheadings, dismemberment, and corporal mutilation, which earned her being the right hand of several members among the most feared of the criminal cell.

 
Among her horrifying revelations was that being so involved in the underworld, the violence became so normal that it lost meaning; for this reason she began to acquire the habit of drinking the blood of her victims while it was still hot, or bathing in it, depending on her mood. And if that were not enough, she declared coldly and with great detail that she began to have sexual relations with the decapitated corpses.

 
Although the date and circumstances of her detention and capture are not clear, it leaked on different media that she would be arrested. She sensed her luck was over. It was around 3:00 p.m. when she was about to flee. That day she observed signs that something was going to happen, as there was a lot of movement from both the Army and the police.

 
Currently, as far as is known, she is being held in one of the Social Rehabilitation Centers of Baja California, awaiting sentencing.