Friends Since Childhood, Cheerful And Hard-Working: The Broken Lives Of Roberto, Diego, Uriel, Jaime And Dante

"Char" for Borderland Beat

This article was translated and reposted from EL PAÍS

The kidnapping of five young people from Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, whose remains were found charred, shocks Mexico and shows the slow progress in the investigation of missing persons cases.

Written by Beatriz Guillén

In the photo they are kneeling, gagged and beaten. Their relatives say it is them, but Roberto Olmeda, Diego Lara, Uriel Galvan, Jaime Martinez and Dante Cedillo are much more. They practice boxing and cycling, they study engineering and work in a blacksmith's shop, they support America and Messi, they listen to Junior H and Peso Pluma. It was almost yesterday that they went to the movies to see Oppenheimer. Childhood friends, they are between 19 and 22 years old. On Friday, August 11, they met where they always meet: at the San Miguel viewpoint in Lagos de Moreno, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. They sent a last message at 10:55 p.m. to say that they were on their way home and after that there was only pain. The disappearance of the boys and the dissemination of the brutal images of their kidnapping have shaken an anesthetized country and show the difficulties of the authorities to clarify the cases of the missing.

On one side is the video of the horror - where two of the boys appear lying face down, with their white T-shirts covered in blood, and another of the boys forced to beat and stab one of his friends - and on the other, the recording of the group in a sunset at the lookout point, the video of Uriel as a child showing off his bicycle or the photos of Diego on the beach with his sister, Dante's cycling awards and the broken tears of Roberto's father waiting at the top of the lookout point for his missing son to return.

The scant official information prevents us from knowing who, where or why the boys were taken. The trail points to organized crime. The video released bore the mark "Puro MZ", which is attributed to Mayo Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the car of one of the young men was found in flames on the highway linking Lagos de Moreno with Encarnacion de Diaz, a red zone for the dispute between the Sinaloa and the Jalisco Cartel of the New Generation (CJNG). The governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, stated on Wednesday that it is "evident" the connection of crime with drug trafficking groups.

But first, where are the young men? Six days have passed and the authorities still have not recovered them. On Wednesday afternoon, the Attorney General's Office found the property where the photo and video were allegedly taken. Hours later they identified a farm with the charred remains of four people. Meanwhile, the broken families are just waiting: "Bring them back. It doesn't matter how they are. The people who have them, send them back. Don't wear us down again and again.

Roberto Olmeda Cuéllar

Armando Olmeda said worriedly that his son had already skipped a class. On Monday lessons began at the University of Guadalajara, where Roberto was in the sixth semester of Industrial Engineering, and the boy had already missed a day. "Yesterday classes started and he couldn't go, I know the teachers can wait for him, but, well, he already missed a class, but it's not his responsibility," said the father, who had refused to watch any video: "I don't want to watch anything, because maybe I can't stand to see that. I don't want to hurt my mind. I have to stay strong.

Roberto, known as Cochi, is 20 years old, a student and an athlete. He regularly practices boxing, often with Uriel. "He's a guy who hardly goes out, doesn't smoke, hardly drinks," said his brother Miguel these days. It was to him that Roberto sent an image last Friday from the San Miguel lookout point, while he was waiting for the rest of the group. "If I had my brother in front of me I would tell him that I love him very much, that I am very proud of him", he says in an interview, "my mother sells pozole on Saturdays and he is the one who helps her".

His Facebook account reveals his taste for rap and reading, his trips to Puerto Vallarta and Teotihuacán, his fondness for movies and sunsets. He celebrated his last birthday on December 12, when he wrote with a smiley face: "Already on the second floor #20years old". On August 11 he was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and white tennis shoes. On Wednesday afternoon, Armando wrote next to a photo of his son: "You are the sky, you will change the color, I will love you always, the magic stayed in me. 5 days for 5 angels".

Diego Lara Santoyo

It was her sister who raised the alarm on Twitter. Desperate, Magalli Lara wrote on Sunday: "Urgent: since last night, our lives are plunged in anguish. We have no news of my brother and his friends. Every minute counts in this desperate search." The young woman also said that the last communication with her brother had been on Friday at 10:55 p.m. when he was on his way home. But he never arrived.

Diego is 20 years old and works as a blacksmith. He works in his father's workshop. His family describes him as "a very cheerful boy and a very hesitant guy". He was proud of his car, a brown Volkswagen Jetta, which he even had as his Facebook cover photo. It was in that vehicle that the five young men drove that night. The Jalisco Prosecutor's Office found it in the early hours of Monday morning on the highway between Lagos de Moreno and Encarnación Díaz. The car was on fire and in the trunk were the remains of a male person, according to the authorities, who have yet to carry out the identification.

On the day of the disappearance he was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and ripped jeans, according to the search report. In the macabre leaked video a person with that description appears, lying on the floor, with his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by blood. "What makes them want to egg search to see such horrible content? Besides insisting and harassing families to see such content? Don't they think we are already going through enough pain?" wrote Magalli on Wednesday, after the dissemination of the images. She, in return, has shared images of her brother in a sunset on the beach: "Come, make fun of me with your most mocking laughter, challenge me with your eyes, but come."

Uriel Galván González

Uriel is the youngest of all, he is only 19 years old. His father Jaime said that the boy "is very cheerful, very friendly and very close to his family". They were alarmed as early as Friday night, when he didn't answer his cell phone when they called him and then he didn't go to sleep. "We dialed him and he didn't answer. It broke me down. I would tell him that I love him, that I miss him so much." It was his father who initiated Uriel's passion for bicycles, so much so that when he was very young he joined a group of cyclists in Lagos. He also practiced boxing with Roberto.

The day he disappeared he was wearing a white t-shirt, washed out jeans and black tennis shoes. His vehicle was located hours after his disappearance next to the Archangel parish, less than 60 meters from the San Miguel viewpoint where he had arranged to meet his friends. It was undamaged, which leads us to believe that he left it there to travel in Diego's car with the rest of the group.

Dante Cedillo

Dante was a professional cyclist, in the 2016 National Olympics, when he was still a minor, he won two gold medals in various categories. "He has national cups," his brother, Mauro Cedillo, has said these days. "He is my only family," the boy has pointed out, after explaining that his parents passed away. He has shared the search images with the phrase "your brother is waiting for you". He was 22 years old and the oldest of the group. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans on the day he disappeared. He was also carrying his pink Specialized bicycle.

In addition, Dante works in a restaurant and had started a new window silicone business. "You don't know the pain you are causing me knowing that you are no longer here. From one day to the next everything changed, so many years of friendship, so many moments and so many stories we had together, you taught me what the word loyalty means", wrote his friend Juan Alberto, "I keep all the beautiful things we lived, a person like you does not need prayers or masses because you are already in heaven accompanying your parents".

Jaime Martínez Miranda

His family and América: those were the two devotions of Jaime, 21, whose Facebook profile picture was a picture of his grandmother, and his cover was a picture of his mother and all his siblings. The boy, who worked as a bricklayer, regularly shared jokes and memes on social networks, as well as music by Peso Pluma and, especially, Junior H. He was wearing black shorts, sandals and socks on the day he disappeared.

"Jaime is a very happy boy, he loved to dance, he always had us smiling at any nonsense he did, he was the joy of us, he was my little boy, he is my little brother the youngest," said between tears his sister Ana, who begged the authorities to end the uncertainty.

Source: EL PAÍS