{"id":293660,"date":"2025-04-30T00:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/no-evidence-of-cremations-at-mexican-ranch-attorney-general-says\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T00:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:04:15","slug":"no-evidence-of-cremations-at-mexican-ranch-attorney-general-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/no-evidence-of-cremations-at-mexican-ranch-attorney-general-says\/","title":{"rendered":"No Evidence of Cremations at Mexican Ranch, Attorney General Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/29\/multimedia\/29int-mexico-report-mcvq\/29int-mexico-report-mcvq-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"No Evidence of Cremations at Mexican Ranch, Attorney General Says\" title=\"No Evidence of Cremations at Mexican Ranch, Attorney General Says\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/14\/world\/americas\/mexico-extermination-camp.html\" title=\"\">abandoned ranch in western Mexico<\/a> that groups searching for missing relatives had claimed was an \u201cextermination camp\u201d \u2014 because of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/21\/world\/americas\/mexico-extermination-camp.html\" title=\"\">discarded personal items and burned remains<\/a> found there \u2014 was a training hub for a major cartel, Mexico\u2019s attorney general announced on Tuesday. But, he said \u201cthere is not a single piece of evidence to prove\u201d that the ranch was the site of human cremations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At a news conference presenting his office\u2019s findings so far in the high-profile case, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz said that the Izaguirre ranch in Teuchitl\u00e1n, a village near Guadalajara in Jalisco state, was \u201ctotally proven\u201d to have been used as a recruitment, training and operations center by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most violent criminal organizations in the country. He said that conclusion was based on testimonials and documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But in a departure from previous comments, Mr. Gertz insisted that there was no proof of cremations at the ranch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gertz said a container of very small bone fragments was found by the authorities who originally discovered the ranch in September. He said that studies conducted by a Mexico City university on evidence, dirt and other materials did not find heat levels over 200 degrees Celsius. Cremations, he said, require levels in excess of 800 degrees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Earlier this month, Mr. Gertz said that investigators <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/elpais.com\/mexico\/2025-04-08\/la-fgr-dice-que-no-ha-encontrado-indicios-de-hornos-crematorios-en-el-rancho-de-teuchitlan.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">had not found evidence<\/a> of crematories at the ranch, but that some human remains found there had \u201ctraces of some type of cremation.\u201d And Mexico\u2019s security minister, Omar Garc\u00eda Harfuch, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/lopezdoriga\/status\/1904180262097072466\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> last month that, based on a detained person\u2019s testimony, the cartel went as far as killing those who resisted training or tried to escape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Tuesday, Mr. Gertz said that, beyond the one body found by the authorities in September, when the National Guard exchanged fire with people at the ranch, investigators had not found more bodies or bones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The ditches and holes in the ground \u2014 which a search group had believed to be cremation ovens \u2014 were bonfires, Mr. Gertz said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">H\u00e9ctor Flores, a leader of a search group in Jalisco state, said in a phone interview that search groups still believed that the ranch had been an extermination site and that people had been cremated there given what they found last month. He said that officials were using technical language in an effort to change the narrative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe government can call it whatever it wants, but I think Mexican society is mature enough and aware of this whole Izaguirre topic to not believe the lies of the federal government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gertz said that authorities had no idea how many people may have been recruited or disappeared at the ranch. He said the forensic team was still studying the bone fragments to identify them, a task that has been complicated by their small size.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Multiple times on Tuesday, Mr. Gertz reminded the public that the investigation was ongoing and that his office has only had control of the case since late March, when President Claudia Sheinbaum asked him to take over.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After a group of volunteers searching for their missing relatives received a tip in early March about a possible mass grave hidden in western Mexico, photos of heaps of shoes and clothes shocked a country already scarred by many episodes of brutal violence and clandestine graves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than 120,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since the country began keeping track in 1962, according to official data. More than 15,000 have gone missing in the state of Jalisco, with many of the cases believed to be linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Last month, Mr. Gertz criticized the investigation carried out by local authorities and said it had been riddled with irregularities. Local officials failed to secure the site after it was first located in September, and it was abandoned until the search group came along last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Tuesday, Mr. Gertz said that a state human rights commission in Jalisco told local authorities in 2021 of illicit activities at the ranch \u201cbut they did nothing.\u201d Among the 14 people currently detained in connection with the case, Mr. Gertz said there are three local police officers, including a police chief, as well as a person whom the authorities have identified as <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/mx\/actualidad\/sociedad\/2025\/03\/24\/67e1ab7ce2704ee6528b4595.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a cartel leader<\/a> who oversaw the training center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re going to go after those who were covering up or participating in\u201d the cartel\u2019s operations at the ranch, Mr. Gertz said, noting that this included public officials. He also said that his office was investigating other possible \u201cnarco-ranches\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As far as the bags of clothes that were found at the ranch \u2014 but that have not been studied by local authorities \u2014 Mr. Gertz said that he did not know whom they belonged to. But he said that federal investigators planned to work with search groups to help identify the items and then perhaps link them to their owners through forensic tests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/29\/world\/americas\/mexico-extermination-camp.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An abandoned ranch in western Mexico that groups searching for missing relatives had claimed was an \u201cextermination camp\u201d \u2014 because of discarded personal items and burned remains found there \u2014 was a training hub for a major cartel, Mexico\u2019s attorney general announced on Tuesday. But, he said \u201cthere is not a single piece of evidence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/29\/multimedia\/29int-mexico-report-mcvq\/29int-mexico-report-mcvq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11354,195026,17375,87636,228370,2512,228369,1032,200055,185349,9249,1296,69967,16658,200057,61721],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293662,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293660\/revisions\/293662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}