Mexico: 9 policemen arrested in connection with migrant killings

Mexican officials arrested a dozen police officers last month for alleged involvement in the deaths of 19 people in the northeastern region of Tamaulipas.

Tamaulipas' attorney general, Irving Barrios, told a news conference on Tuesday that investigations showed that at least 12 state police were involved in the killings in Camargo township.

The persistent police officers apparently changed the crime scene and removed ammunition casings, prosecutors said. A police report and information given by the suspects in interviews do not match the phone records and location data, they added.

Of the 19 bodies examined, 16 were male, one female and the other two were so badly burned that their gender has not yet been determined.

The killings in Mexico have once again caused consternation over the dangers facing migrants, many of whom are abused on the journey north of impoverished Central American countries. If the involvement of law enforcement is proven, the case will reflect the kidnapping and possible slaughter of 43 student teachers in the southwestern city of Iguala in 2014 by wicked police working with a drug gang.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to end killings and kidnappings by authorities. Yet it is difficult to erase ties between security forces and organized crime.

The two migrants from Guatemala were identified after their indigenous family of Maya gave DNA samples to help investigators.

It is believed that more than a dozen victims came from the highlands of Guatemala, a region hard hit by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather last year.

Prosecutors also said the Mexican owner of one of the burnt-out pickups was found at the scene. The truck was stopped a few weeks earlier during the retention of 66 migrants in the nearby state of Nuevo Leon but was later delivered to the owner, recognized only as 'Jesus M'.

Prosecutors said Daniel P, another of the Mexican victims, was a known migrant smuggler.

The murder is the latest chapter in Tamaulipas' history of police corruption. Most towns and cities in the state have seen their municipal police forces disbanded years ago because officers often paid for the cartel.

A more professional state police force would be the answer, a conviction that crashed with the arrests announced Tuesday.

The crime also took place in a rural area simultaneously the busiest of the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal crossings.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants, many from Central America, travel through the region under the supervision of guides who pay cartels for permission to transport. The lucrative ways are contradicted by pieces of the Gulf Cartel and the dreaded Zetas gang.

Prosecutors say the games were a member of more comprehensive protection that involves other media with transients, including Salvadorans, and another with armed men on board, apparently for protection.

The killings in Mexico have once again caused consternation about the dangers facing migrants, many of whom are abused on the journey north of impoverished Central American countries.