A ruthless drug cartel is reportedly forcing its new members to take part in cannibalism and perform beheadings as part of its notorious “terror schools”.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which has seen rapid expansion across Mexico, particularly in the west, is known for its brutal acts of violence aimed at intimidating rivals. The group’s heinous activities include downing an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, murdering hundreds of state officials, and hanging victims’ bodies from bridges.
These horrifying acts are taught at CJNG’s training camps, usually hidden away in rural areas where recruits learn combat tactics and small arms handling. Over a period of three to four months, these recruits are also turned into cannibals.
An anonymous recruit previously told to DailyBeast.com: “I’ve been there and there was a lot of [cannibalism]. They recruit them and then they start working on them.”
Initially, CJNG members are trained in how to sever their victims’ fingers and toes, a favoured method of torture by the cartel, reports the Mirror.
The source added: “They are given a choice of one of those pieces to eat in front of the boss. You have to do it without reacting or vomiting or you are beaten. If you didn’t want to [eat human flesh] they wouldn’t let you leave, they had you there.”
Once the members have proven their loyalty, they start learning how to dismember entire bodies.
Another man, identified only by the alias Francisco, claims he was duped into joining a CJNG training camp in the mountains of Guadalajara – a state in the west of the country – after being offered a job as a security guard.
Whilst there, one man was executed by gang members for failing to assemble a gun.
Francisco was then forced to sever his hand and ordered to consume part of the corpse.
He said: “I had to do it, you have no choice. I remember the fear, the blood.”
Another survivor from the training camp revealed that the most timid recruit in his class was instructed to behead a rival and crush his head with a stone. When another regurgitated part of a body, the sadistic instructor picked it out of the dirt and forced him to eat it.
Last year, chilling footage surfaced showing CJNG members extracting the hearts of rival members and biting into them, taunting their deceased enemies.
Along with desensitising new recruits, the cartel has also used these brutal tactics to instil fear among local populations and strengthen its hold on the drug trade.
During the pandemic, three individuals, including a pregnant woman, were left critically injured and handless after being accused of theft by the CJNG.
Their mutilated bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in Guanajuato, covered in blood.
A note attached to one of the men read: “This happened to me for being a thief, and because I didn’t respect hard working people and continued to rob them. Anyone who does the same will suffer.”
In an attempt to cover its tracks, the cartel also resorts to dissolving its victims in acid baths. In 2018, Christian Palma Gutiérrez, a Mexican rapper, confessed to disposing of the bodies of three missing film students by dissolving them in acid.
He was paid 3,000 pesos ($160; £115) a week by the CJNG, who mistook the students for members of a rival gang before kidnapping and torturing them.