EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The government of Chiapas is confirming the discovery of human remains inside a cooler abandoned at a gas station in the town of La Concordia on Monday. The find, which Mexican news reports say consists of four severed human heads, came just hours after a dismembered body was left hanging from an overpass on the Tuxtla-Ocozocoautla highway.
The news reports say signs were left in each location by two drug cartels threatening each other; one warned its rivals to stay away from the increasingly lucrative migrant smuggling trade.
The sign left next to the hanging body — a severed head and a trash bag pending from ropes — warned, “This will happen to all the people with Panchito, El Guero Pulseras and (El Tarje).” The reports identified El Guero Pulseras as a Sinaloa cartel leader in the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala and is seeing a daily influx of migrants from third countries headed to the United States.
The sign inside the cooler left hours later in La Concordia expressed similar threats against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and made a direct reference to migrant smuggling. “… the same will happen to all the polleros (smugglers) who generate money to CJNG …,” said the writing visible in photographs published on Tuesday by international news outlets.
The Chiapas Attorney General on Monday said it was investigating the remains left in the cooler in La Concordia, and on Tuesday said they belonged to three men and a woman. Authorities identified three of the victims as Blanca N., Luis Fernando N., and Yonibeth N. The AG’s Office said the identity of the fourth set of remains was pending.
Migrant smuggling has become a global multi-billion side business for the drug cartels, according to testimony last year in the House Committee on Homeland Security. The cartels charge fixed quotas for transporting foreign nationals through several countries and get them to the United States, who charge pass-through fees and in many cases kidnap their clients or a rival group’s migrants for ransom, reports the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force.
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