The Monterrey-Laredo Highway Where Citizens Disappear

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Video translation is as follows:

Denise Maerker: In a section of road that has become a kind of Bermuda triangle in recent months. Dozens of people have disappeared there.

The following report is by Reymundo Pérez Arellano and Víctor Olvera.

Narrator: On January 22, Elsa Garcia stopped having contact with her husband Manuel Antonio Acuña Tolentino, a driver of the Didi transportation enterprise. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law Michael Foxworth Tolentino.

They went to Nuevo Laredo to pick up a friend, Bruno Castañeda Mejía.

Elsa: They met with each other at the Wal-Mart there in Nuevo Laredo. There the 3 meet with some relatives who came to visit from the United States. Afterwards the relatives returned home. 

Narrator: The gps real-time location indicated that Manuel Antonio's phone stopped having a signal near the neighborhood Granjas Económica when he returned to Monterrey.

Elsa: We lost communication with them, with the 3.

Narrator: 3 months later Pedro Jesús Castro Villarreal, 28, also from the Didi transportation enterprise, disappeared in the same manner.

Juana María Prado: He was going to Nuevo Laredo to pick up some clients. In fact they returned from Nuevo Laredo and at kilometer 26 was the last place where he had a cell phone signal connection.

Narrator: Juana María Prado created the search group The Disappeared of Nuevo León in Nuevo Laredo to warn the authorities that citizens were disappearing within the 219-kilometer stretch of road that connects both cities.

To date she has registered the disappearances of at least 72 people. Among them 6 minors and foreigners such as the American Gladys Pérez Sanchez. And her 2 children of which nothing is known since June 13 when they were returning to the United States.

Juana María: Their cars or trucks don't appear anywhere, they turned off their telephones. It’s as if the earth has swallowed them up.

Narrator: The Nuevo León Prosecutor's Office has a record of 28 people who disappeared when they went from Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo. 9 of them were found alive and one more dead.

They affirm that the incidents begin from the town of Sabinas Hidalgo and that the roadway is dangerous between kilometers 36 and 26. Some of which this stretch of road is in Tamaulipas territory. At this last point there is an internal customs office there that has not operated for many years.

Luis Enrique Orozco: Some people who have been located reported having been kidnapped by armed individuals. They were loaded onto vehicles and taken to some unknown point. 

Juana María: At kilometer 26 there is a clandestine operation, an organized crime checkpoint. Every person who travels to Nuevo Laredo knows that.

Trucker: Hey. How are you guys doing, are you ok?

Young male: Thank God we’re ok. 

Trucker: Oh gosh. Thank God you’re all ok.

Narrator: One of the citizens who was rescued told the authorities how these disappearances occur.

Victim Testimony: On the road there was a checkpoint of people dressed as soldiers. They placed me on a truck where there were 5 more individuals dressed as military men also. They covered my head with a cloth. In this truck they started to move me around all day on a dirt road. 

The military men asked me where the drug was that I was bringing and who did I work for. They assaulted me with a wooden board. They ask me for my cell phone to check it. Just as well they asked for the password to unlock it. And I gave it them so that they could review it. In the end they abandoned me on a dirt road.

Narrator: For the Nuevo León authorities there are indications that organized crime, specifically the Northeast Cartel that controls Nuevo Laredo, is behind these disappearances.

Luis Enrique Orozco: The main cartel that operates in that area of ​​the state of Tamaulipas, it also operates in the state of Nuevo León. Seeks to maintain control of the territories it already dominates, they are seeking to obtain information from rival groups.

Juana María: We have already warned that Nuevo Laredo is dangerous. And that the same crime keeps happening at the same kilometer with the identical characteristics.

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