Jalisco: Houses Of Terror Increase Within The State

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Video translation is as follows:

Female Reporter: Located in affluent districts of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Guadalajara. The Houses of Terror or Safe Houses are used by members of criminal cells to kidnap men and women. In order to torture them, dismember them, and bury them in that place.

For the academic and specialist at the Law of the University in Guadalajara, Francisco Jiménez, pointed out that these facts that began in municipalities outside the state have gained greater strength in recent years. To such a degree that they have already settled in the metropolitan area.

Francisco Jimenez Reynoso: This centripetal force that began in the interior of the State was approaching the predominantly urban region of ​​our entity. They started finding houses of terror, multi-purpose houses, where criminal groups hold people that they've kidnapped. 

There in that place at a certain stage, they torture them. And in another stage they murdered them. And in another stage they dismember them. And finally they use these homes as clandestine cemeteries. They buried them right there.

Those houses are sometimes occupied when they are uninhabited. Or they rent them out. Because this centralized force that’s been approaching the States nucleus, the same metropolitan area.

There’s now reports of safe houses in Tlajomulco. Just as well in Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, and Guadalajara.

Female Reporter: On many occasions these farms are renamed and the owners don’t realize the crimes that occurred in the place. In addition, the silence of neighbors feeds impunity. Some come to hear screams or perceive a smell of decomposition, few dare to call the authorities.

Francisco Jimenez Reynoso: Unfortunately, they are already anywhere. In popular neighborhoods or in well off communities, some subdivisions or private estates.

Well, these are their reserves for people who can be there living. And carrying out their daily criminal acts. Just as well high impact crimes. 

Female Reporter: During this 2021 the crime that framed the arrival of these types of houses to the metropolitan area was what happened in the month of April in the Chapalita neighborhood between the limits of Guadalajara and Zapopan.

Where elements of the Tapatia police made a surveillance tour when they were attacked by armed civilians. In this security event, the death of three civilians was recorded. And there was the arrest of more than thirty people.

Although this area has cameras from the C-5 and C-4, of both respectively.  No one had realized that a large number of people entered and exited.

Francisco Jimenez Reynoso: It’s ridiculous that with the resources the state of Jalisco has. The more than one billion pesos supposedly invested in a C-5 technology, and no one sees anything?

And that houses are being rented in emblematic neighborhoods as Chapalita. In addition vehicles of dubious individuals enter and leave. We could say that thirty people have been killed there. By those individuals who operate these types of events.

Moreover, they also have a group of people detained there. Yet the authorities don’t see anything. On this matter we can think of two hypotheses. One is that we definitely have some very clumsy and inefficient authorities. Or two that they are in collusion.

Female Reporter: During the month of October the Chapalita neighborhood once again draws the attention of the authorities. Inside an abandoned casino located on López Mateo Avenue at the intersection of the De las Rosas Avenue two individuals were asking for help.

They found them deprived of their freedom. In this event eight people were arrested and made available to the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Milenio