CJNG Leaves Narcomanta Threatening the Commanders of El Hongo Prison

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat

On May 22 2021, a banner threatening two of El Hongo prison wardens appeared on a bridge in Mexicali, Baja California.

On a pedestrian bridge which crosses the Mexicali-Tijuana highway at kilometer 3.5, a threatening narcomanta (narcobanner) was hung with a message warning the prison wardens of El Hongo, Tecate. It was reported to 911 emergency services line that several men were witnessed hanging the banner at around 9:10 pm near Colonia Zaragoza, Mexicali.

Municipal police officers were the first to arrive at the reported location. They removed the banner from the bridge. The State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) took custody of the banner and filed it as evidence. 

The narcomanta read as follows: 

Commanders Hongo 1, Hongo 3 "Charly” Murillo Quintero,

Last warning. Stop being a bully with the prisoners. 

We already know where 18's - 29's are located. 

-CJNG

“El Hongo” is a common way of referring to El Hongo area Social Reinsertion Center (CERESO). The prison is located in northern Baja California, between the cities of Tecate and Mexicali, near Federal Highway 2 and Federal Highway 20, relatively close to the US-Mexico border. Commander Hongo 1 and Commander Hongo 3 likely refer to the director of El Hongo Complex I and director of El Hongo Complex III. 

A threatening message against officials at El Hongo prison was left on this same bridge just a few months earlier.

On January 21, 2021, a narcomanta was left which read:

David Flores Valenzuela Dirt. 

I ask you to respect the inmates of El Hongo, otherwise your blood will not be respected. 

El Hongo Prison. A Brief History.

As of 2014, 14 out of every 100 inmates in Mexico serving time for charges related to organized crime would be serving that time imprisoned in the state of Baja California, according to data from National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). Baja California has four prisons: El Hongo, Tijuana, Ensenada, and Mexicali. 

In 2002, El Hongo prison was opened in the town of El Hongo, which is near Tecate. El Hongo gets attention for two main reasons: one, the dangerous prisoners it houses; and two, the dangerous conditions inmates and guards alike endure. 

The Food 

By 2006, La Cosmopolitana, a meal service company, established a virtual monopoly over food service contracts granted for Mexican prisons, including El Hongo. In December 2019, the FGE launched an inquiry into an alleged 20 million peso bribe meant to hinder food service companies other than La Cosmopolitana from gaining government contracts.

In November 2019, Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez decided to break La Cosmopolitana’s monopoly over Baja prison food services. Bonilla gave the prisons of Tijuana and Ensenada to rival food service company Alimentos con Ideas, while La Cosmopolitana retained contracts for El Hongo and Mexicali as part of his larger Anti-Corruption campaign.

However this progress was not to last. In April 2020, the Attorney General’s inquiry was frozen due to “insufficient evidence”. That same month, Governor Jaime Bonilla decided to revise his decision and directly award all the Baja Prison contracts to La Cosmopolitana. The food was allegedly no longer being unfairly overpriced. State penitentiary commissioner, Salvador Morales, said there was no longer any overpricing, because the food dishes that cost 70 pesos had been lowered to 55 pesos.

In February 2021, the administration of Jaime Bonilla proposed in Congress a multi-year food service contract that favors La Cosmopolitana for the next six years in which the company guarantees a contract for 2 billion pesos. It was approved by majority and the contract was officially awarded in March 2021. 

The Prisoner Conditions 

In July 2019, relatives of El Hongo inmates protested outside the municipal palace of Tecate. They complained that prisoners in El Hongo endured abuse, poor food quality, and insufficient medical attention so severe that it amounted to human rights violations. 

In March 2020, parts of the El Hongo prison population went on a mass hunger strike in protest of their poor living conditions. Local media reports that one prisoner died of starvation during the hunger strike. In May 2020, it was announced that there was an outbreak of COVID-19 inside El Hongo which infected some 300 prisoners.  

The most recent El Hongo controversy involved 44 inmates falling ill with food poisoning from food presumably prepared by La Cosmopolitana on January 21, 2021. This led the state’s Human Rights Commission to launch an investigation into conditions within the Baja California penitentiary system. 

Sources May 22 Narcomanta: El Imparcial, ZETA Tijuana,  Valor Por Tamaulipas 

Sources El Hongo History: Jornada BC, La Voz de la Frontera, Periodismo Negro, Infobae, Zeta Tijuana Article 1, Zeta Tijuana Article 2