Clandestine graves in Veracruz: from under registration to economic interests

08/10/2022

Translated from Spanish

The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Veracruzfailed to report 53 clandestine graves discovered by federal agenciesin that state between 2000 and 2020. In Mexico, there is no single inter-institutional or standardized registry of clandestine graves almost five years after the Mexican General Law on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearances Committed by Individuals, and the National Anti-Corruption Systemwas published, whichestablishes the existence of a national registry and protocols for searchesand investigations. Following 71 freedom ofinformation requests to Mexican agencies and a data cleaning and verification process, Empower found that almost 90% (594) of the graves identified in Veracruz between 2000-20 were discovered during the governorship of PRI politician Javier Duarte de Ochoa (2010-16), who was arrested in 2017 for criminal association and money laundering andstill facesforced disappearance charges.More than 61% of the clandestine graves in Veracruz were also located in areas with energy projects and roads, developments which increased following the Energy Reform of 2013. According to experts, it is likely that there were illicit economic incentives, such as bribery, diversion of public resources, and money laundering, behind the disappearances committed directly or indirectly by public officials.

By Elizabeth Rosales

Two of the largest clandestine graves in Mexico are located in estates in Veracruz that border energy projects and roads that, for decades, were the subject of disputes between businessmen and communal landowners.¹ One is San Julián, where authorities reported 27 clandestine graves and 187 bone fragments, and the other is Colinas de Santa Fe, where a group of mothers searching for their disappeared children discovered 155 graves and more then 22,000 human remains in 2016.

Both sites are located in the state of Veracruz, the entity with the highest number of clandestine graves recognized by the National Search Commission between 2006 and 2020.² During that period, 504 graves were reported in the state, representing 12.32% of the total number of burials registered in Mexico, followed by Tamaulipas with 11.12% and Guerrero with 9.36%.

However, Empower’s research findings reveal under-reporting due to negligence or complicity with organized crime, which prevents the public from knowing the magnitude of the phenomenon of violence in Mexico, according to scholars and civil society representatives.

Between 2000 and 2020, local and federal agencies registered 661 clandestine graves in Veracruz, 978 bodies, and at least 33,549 human remains, in addition to 49 other cases with unspecified quantities.³ However, the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office (FGEV) recognizes only 608 graves for that same time period, failing to report 53 graves previously reported to Empower through freedom of information requests that were found by the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR), the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), the Federal Police (PF), and the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (FGR).

Following a cleaning and verification process of data received through 71 freedom of information requests, Empower identified discrepancies that make evident the lack of a single inter-institutional or at least standardized registry that should be used by the federal and local agencies in charge of the nation’s public security.

Omission or collusion, what lies behind the under-reporting

According to experts, the government agencies responsible for maintaining the registry of disappeared persons have concealed, by omission or collusion, the real number of graves in Veracruz.

The Mexican General Law on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearances Committed by Individuals, and the National Anti-Corruption System (LGMDFPDCPySNBP)⁴ establishes the level of responsibility that each agency has in the event of a disappeared person’s case. In theory, this crime is prosecuted ”ex officio and has the character of permanent or continuous” until the disappeared person or their remains are located and identified; however, relatives of disappeared persons report a lack of investigation and data capture processes separated from reality.

Empower’s analysis also reveals that 89.86% of the graves identified in Veracruz during the same period were discovered during the governorship of PRI politician Javier Duarte de Ochoa (2010-16). While this does not mean that the graves were dug during his administration, Lucy Díaz, coordinator of the search collective El Solecito de Veracruz, told Empower that the majority of her organization’s findings do correspond to people who disappeared during those years.

“Most of what we have found, so far, belongs to the period when Duarte and Yunes were governors,” says Díaz, also referring to Miguel Ángel Yunes who was governor from 2016-18. On July 25, 2022, the FGEV announced the arrest of the Yunes administration’s prosecutor, Jorge Winckler, who had been on the run since 2019 for the alleged crimes of forced disappearance and illegal deprivation of freedom. Winckler was also among those responsible for putting former governor Duarte behind bars.

To date, the Duarte administration is still recognized as one of the most violent and corrupt governments in Veracruz and, currently, the former governor is completing a nine-year prison sentence for criminal association and money laundering.

The economic driver of violence

San Julián and Colinas de Santa Fe are located in an area known as “Playa Norte,” close to the Veracruz-Xalapa highway and a railroad track operated by two railway transporation companies. Additionally, both are located only 6.27 kilometers from the New Seaport of Veracruz, one of the most important infrastructure projects in Mexico, with committed investment of more than 1.4 billion dollars.⁵

San Julián and Colinas de Santa Fe are among the 407 clandestine graves located in areas with energy projects in Veracruz. These graves near energy projects represent 61.57% of the total number of clandestine graves located in the state.

In addition to both of these areas, Alvarado stands out with 76 clandestine graves, a place where a new seaport servicing the oil and gas industry has been under construction since 2017, with an estimated investment of 2 billion dollars.

For Lucy Díaz of El Solecito, the reasons for the violence that has resulted in murders and clandestine graves are multifactorial, but stem mainly from the War on Drugs, a national security strategy implemented by former president Felipe Calderón (2006-12), “and yes, from extractive projects,” says the activist and mother of Luis Guillermo Lagunes Díaz, who disappeared in 2013.

In the context of the War on Drugs, and during the governorships of Fidel Herrera Beltrán (2004-10) and Duarte (2010-16), some of the biggest private investments in oil and electricity were made in Veracruz. This suggests that the climate of violence and anti-crime operations did not inhibit investment in Veracruz; on the contrary, they increased following the Energy Reform of 2013 with Peña Nieto (2012-18) as president.

Víctor Manuel Andrade Guevara, academic at the Universidad Veracruzana, observes a link between the violence and an increase in certain economic activities, such as extractive industries, and concludes that, behind some of the disappearance cases in Mexico, the economic interests of criminal networks are at play, which include public officials, drug cartels, and companies, either directly or indirectly.

“The increase in violence, disappearances, and homicides is linked to many things, probably also, in part, to megaprojects and the installation of extractive industries, particularly oil,” he tells Empower. According to the expert in the culture of legality and access to justice, the high rates of fuel theft and the investments of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) in extractive projects in some municipalities of Veracruz, such as Poza Rica, could be related to the appearance of clandestine graves”.

An example of this is, in 2016, the Federal Police and the FGEV found vehicles previously reported as stolen, guns, and hydrocarbon extraction tools at a ranch located in Tlalixcoyan, Veracruz, where they also discovered more then 11,000 burned boned fragments, including the remains of young people who disappeared on January 11, 2016, when they traveled from the Port of Veracruz to Playa Vicente.

According to a report by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH),⁶ five young people were detained by local police at a gas station in Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, and taken to the El Limon ranch to be handed over to members of the Jalisco “New Generation” Cartel (CJNG), which had orders to kill anyone suspected of belonging to the rival Gulf Cartel.

“We were ordered to kill them for boasting about being the real badasses there,” testified a member of the CJNG on April 15, 2016, before the ministerial authority of Cosamaloapan, Veracruz.⁷

Twenty-one people were arrested for this disappearance case, 13 of whom were accused of belonging to the CJNG and eight others who were former police officers. Ministerial statements made public by the CNDH revealed that the victims were murdered and placed in barrels, where diesel was poured on them and they were set on fire. Afterwards, their remains were thrown into a river located at the El Limón ranch.

Empower requested information from the FGEV about the clandestine graves located at the ranch, but the institution chose to reserve this information for five years.

Forced disappearances, an incalculable problem

In Mexico, there are no tools or mechanisms to figure out the precise number of disappearance cases attributed to the police, soldiers, and public officials. The National Registry of Disappeared and Unfound Persons (RNPDNL) identifies only 14 forced disappearances in Veracruz between 2007-18, when Herrera (2004-10), Duarte (2010-16), and Yunes (2016-18) were governors.

In contrast, the CNDH has registered 239 cases⁸ in the state during the same period, which accounts for 44% of all the disappearances analyzed by the CNDH in Veracruz. For his part, Juan Carlos Trujillo, from the Familiares en Búsqueda search collective, estimates that 95% of the disappearances involve, by action or omission, public officials. The organization that Trujillo represents has been working with the families of disappeared persons since 2013.

A significant statistic identified by Empower is that 89.86% (594) of the graves reported by authorities in Veracruz between 2000-20 were discovered during the Duarte administration. However, it has been impossible to verify the period of time in which the victims went missing, as government authorities would have to first know their identities in order to locate any reports of prior disappearances linked to state security forces. Investigations like this one are challenging due to problems of data capture, under-reporting, and data concealment by the federal and state public security institutions responsible for investigating these crimes.

It is worth mentioning that Duarte, currently in prison, deployed a network of 400 shell companies and straw persons to divert more than 3.6 billion Mexican pesos from the public treasury during his government, according to a journalistic investigation,⁹ and that one of the charges against him for forced disappearance remains pending.

Disappearances committed by public officials, either by themselves or in complicity with other actors, are called “forced disappearances,” according to the Mexican General Law on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearances Committed by Individuals, and the National Anti-Corruption System.

But the motives behind a forced disappearance are difficult to know because the police often do not do their jobs, allege the families of disappeared persons. They claim that the authorities do not investigate and, if they do, they fail to share the case files and lines of investigation with the families, even though it is their right to know according to the General Law for Victims.

This Law establishes that a Federal Legal Advisor for the Attention to Victims must “process and deliver copies of his or her case file to the victim should he or she require them.” It also specifies that family members with an immediate relationship with the person affected by a crime are also victims, though in practice this is not the case.

“It is complicated because the most responsible parties for avoiding or preventing a disappearance aren’t even familiar with the laws,” says Trujillo, who has been searching for his four brothers — Gustavo, Jesús Salvador, Luis Armando, and Raúl Trujillo Herrera — since 2008, as well as for his cousins Jaime López and Gabriel Melo Ulloa, who were disappeared in Poza Rica, Veracruz, in 2010, by inter-municipal police.

“You can have the best laws in the world, but they are useless if they remain unrecognized by the authorities,” he adds.

In fact, almost five years after the Mexican General Law on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearances Committed by Individuals, and the National Anti-Corruption System was published, there is still no National Registry of Clandestine Graves under the responsibility of the National Search System. For this article, an interview was sought with the National Search Commission, which participates in the National System, but its spokesperson and national commissioner declined to comment.

Under-registration matters because it does not allow society to comprehend the magnitude of the violence, explains Andrade Guevara, academic at the Universidad Veracruzana. “For example, Veracruz appears as one of the states with the lowest homicide rates, but this contrasts with the whole perception that is held in the state,” says.

Discrepancies in the registry of clandestine graves

In order to document the number of graves, bodies, and human remains found in Veracruz between 2000-20, Empower submitted 71 freedom of information requests to five agencies: the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, the Secretariat of the Navy, the Secretariat of National Defense, and the Federal Police. With this universe of potential data, Empower processed 18 responses that provided complete information in order to construct a master database.

The data was captured and duplicate cases were deleted. Whenever the same event was reported by two or more agencies, Empower prioritized the FGEV’s records and subsequently added any excess amounts reported by other agencies.

Additionally, Empower registered bodies and human remains located during the same time period, even if authorities did not specify whether the discovery was made inside a clandestine grave. The reason for this is because the Standardized Protocol for the Search of Disappeared and Unfound Persons (PHBPDNL) requires authorities to register these findings in the still non-existent National Registry of Clandestine Graves, regardless of where they were located. Examples of this include clandestine pits, artesian wells, caverns, mine shafts, bodies of water, garbage dumps, residential buildings, and drainage systems.

The Protocol was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation in October 2020,¹⁰ but, even though this document establishes standardized criteria in order to have a common instrument shared between the agencies in charge of these findings, the criteria has not been adopted by all of the prosecutors’ offices and secretariats, despite the fact that the number of disappeared and unfound persons amounts to over 100,000 nationwide. During the Duarte administration alone, 2,150 people disappeared in Veracruz and remain missing, according to the National Registry of Disappeared and Unfound Persons.¹¹

“Systematic, detailed information about these places, their environment, the human remains found, and the perpetrators linked to them is fundamental for conducting a contextual analysis, since it allows for the identification of patterns of concealment and destruction of human remains, as well as contributes to their identification,” the Protocol explains.

Another point to consider is that skulls were counted as victims and not as ”human remains,” although some agencies included them anyway. Finally, all cases reported by an agency as ”unspecified,” ”diverse,” “unidentified,” or ”data unavailable,” and other variations, were categorized by Empower as ”unquantifiable.”

The aforementioned situation resulted in a database containing the number of clandestine graves, bodies, and human remains, broken down by year, area, and municipality in Veracruz, summarized in the following table.

It is important to note that human remains do not suggest a number of disappeared persons, since they were not exhumed or DNA tested to determine how many people they correspond to. In this context, it is impossible for any analysis to be interpreted as a maximum number of clandestine graves, bodies, or human remains located in Veracruz during the period 2000-20, as stated in a companion investigation by Empower.

“It is an issue since it is unclear what the authorities mean by human remains, bone fragments, or bodies. It is a challenge to try and obtain more accurate information, but I think it is worse not to register anything. Although there are very bad records, I think I prefer that over not having a registry at all, as sometimes happens in Guanajuato,” says Jorge Ruiz, data analyst for the organization Data Cívica.

Ruiz is one of the professionals in charge of the Civic Platform of Graves, an initiative that gathers data from the press and federal and state prosecutors’ offices to show the number of clandestine graves that have been located by state and municipality. In this platform, Veracruz ranks number one with 381 graves.

“I think the main problem is that, for example, it seems like the state prosecutors’ offices don’t know how to define what a clandestine grave is […] very few of them have a systematized or standardized registry. It is also a matter of capabilities, perhaps a bit of negligence,” adds the expert.

The case of San Julián

Empower was able to confirm that the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Veracruz does not share information within its own departments and, as a result, it has failed to report some of its findings when answering freedom of information requests.

In September 2017, the FGEV recognized that, through the National Transparency Platform,¹² in 2011 it had discovered 27 clandestine graves with 59 human remains in San Julián. But the same institution failed to report these numbers in all of its responses to freedom of information requests submitted by Empower between 2019-20, and even denied the existence of any information regarding graves in San Julián.¹³

Following appeals to the National Institute for Access to Information (INAI) and the Veracruz Institute for Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (IVAI), the latter confirmed the FGEV’s response of the ”non-existence” of the information.¹⁴ Subsequently, Empower submitted a second information request to which a different department of the Prosecutor’s Office responded,¹⁵ acknowledging the 27 graves and 186 human remains located in San Julián between 2011-20.

By April 2021, the INAI revoked the “non-existence” response and the IVAI ordered the FGEV to provide new responses that accounted for all of the information requests already replied to by the FGEV at the time through its different prosecutors’ offices.

In March 2022, the FGEV provided the IVAI, through one of its departments, with the same “non-existence” response it had previously sent to Empower two years earlier while, through a different department and in response to a second information request, it again confirmed the existence of the 27 clandestine graves, this time failing to report the 186 human remains previously located at San Julian.¹⁶ The responses received by Empower continue to be inconsistent to this day.

The under-registration confirmed by Empower through freedom of information requests brings to light a series of structural problems that make it harder for the families of disappeared persons to achieve justice, according to Andrade Guevara, academic at the Universidad Veracruzana.

“We have no information to estimate the real levels of violence and this denotes the indifference of authorities […] the absence of this information is quite serious,” says the researcher.

The War on Drugs in Mexico

In 2006, President Calderón implemented a strategy to militarize national security, using the Armed Forces and public security institutions to fight organized crime. He called it ”War on Drugs,” but, instead of accomplishing its purposes, the strategy only increased the level of violence in Mexico.

By the end of the Calderon administration, Mexico reached 120,462 homicides, which more than doubles the 60,280 homicides registered during the previous administration (2000-06), according to data from the National Institution of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

Furthermore, during the same period, 15,816 complaints were filed against military forces and public security authorities, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

Notwithstanding, subsequent governments maintained a similar security strategy and, in 2019, President Andres Manuel López Obrador created the National Guard, a public security institution comprised of retired soldiers, federal police officers, and new recruits. In less than two years since its creation, until August 2021, the CNDH had opened 451 cases of complaints related to serious human rights violations by these agents.

In addition, the National Search Commission received budget cuts during López Obrador’s presidency¹⁷ and, as of June 2021, it does not publish reports updating historical data on clandestine graves in Mexico, although search collectives continue to discover clandestine graves in Veracruz.

The Solecito collective, for example, continues to search in territories such as Arbolillo, in the city of Alvarado, and La Guapota,¹⁸ in the city of Ursulo Galvan, although, as of June 2022, there were no updated numbers on findings in these areas.¹⁹

“In Mexico a war has been unleashed since 2006, with Calderon, but the main war for us is against the numbers. It is the war where the reality in this country remains unknown,” says Juan Carlos Trujillo of Familiares en Búsqueda.

Empower requested an interview with the head of the National Search Commission, Karla Quintana; nevertheless, the person responsible for coordinating her agenda denied the request, explaining that the competent authority to comment for this article is the FGEV (instead of the CNB).

The Prosecutor’s office has the obligation to investigate and prosecute crimes; however, the CNB was created in 2017 to conduct searches for life and forensic searches for the identification of bodies and human remains, according to the Law.

As this article went to publication, the FGEV had not responded to e-mails and calls made by Empower.

*This article, together with a first article entitled “Vitol still has a contract with Pemex; its former CEO in Mexico is an associate of a deceased financial operator of Los Zetas,” is part of an investigative project about the violence, corruption, and forced disappearances that have plagued Veracruz since the administration of Javier Duarte de Ochoa, and remain ongoing. Empower has worked for more than three years to document human rights violations in the state. Coming soon are the three investigations that comprise this project, which will be available at https://crimenesgraves.empowerllc.net.

1 “Carpeta de Investigación UAT/XVII/CI/1595/2016 del Distrito Judicial XVII de la ciudad de Veracruz, Veracruz, 14 septiembre 2016. Foja 121”, FGEV, 14 September 2016, www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060084-fgev-carpetade-investigacion-uat-xvii-ci-1595. Accessed 27 January 2022.

2 “Búsqueda e identificación de Personas Desaparecidas,” Secretaría de Gobernación, 30 September 2020, www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/586166/B_squeda_e_Identificaci_n_7_de_Octubre_2020.pdf.

3 “Base de Datos sobre Fosas Clandestinas Localizadas en Veracruz entre 2000-20,” Empower, 2 August 2022, archive.org/details/relacion-fosas-cuerpos-restos.

4 “Ley General en Materia de Desaparición Forzada, Desaparición Cometida por Particulares y del Sistema Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas (LGMDFPDCPySNBP),” Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión, 17 November 2017, www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LGMDFP.pdf.

5 “Nuevo Puerto de Veracruz,” Proyectos México, 26 December 2021, www.proyectosmexico.gob.mx/proyecto_inversion/nuevo-puerto-de-veracruz. Accessed 27 January 2022.

6 “Recomendación No. 5VG/2017 sobre la Investigación de violaciones graves a los derechos humanos, por la detención arbitraria, tortura, desaparición forzada y ejecución de V1, V2, V3, V4, y MV […],” CNDH, 19 July 2017, www.cndh.org.mx/sites/default/files/doc/Recomendaciones/ViolacionesGraves/RecVG_005.pdf.

7 Ibid.

8 “Informe especial sobre la situación de seguridad y desaparición de personas en el estado de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave,” CNDH, 2019, www.cndh.org.mx/sites/default/files/documentos/2019-11/IE-desaparicion-personas-Veracruz.pdf.

9 “Informe especial sobre la situación de seguridad y desaparición de personas en el estado de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave,” CNDH, 2019, www.cndh.org.mx/sites/default/files/documentos/2019-11/IE-desaparicion-personas-Veracruz.pdf.

10 “Acuerdo SNBP/002/2020 por el que se aprueba el Protocolo Homologado para la Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas y No Localizadas, el cual se anexa al presente Acuerdo y forma parte integrante del mismo,” Diario Oficial de la Federación, 6 October 2020, https://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5601905&fecha=06/10/2020#gsc.tab=0.

11 National Registry of Disappeared and Unfound Persons (RNPDNO), Secretaría de Gobernación, 2010-26, https://versionpublicarnpdno.segob.gob.mx/Dashboard/Index.

12 “Respuesta a solicitud de acceso a la información dirigida a la FGEV. Folio 00375417,” Plataforma Nacional de Transparencia (PNT), 21 March 2017, tinyurl.com/yfh5lvj8. Accessed 27 January 2022.

13 “Respuesta a solicitud de acceso a la información dirigidas a la FGEV. Folio 01092720,” PNT, 23 June 2020, tinyurl.com/ygcw6sd9. Accessed 27 January 2022.

14 Ibid.

15 “Respuesta solicitud de acceso a la información dirigida a la FGEV. Folio 01727920,” PNT, 14 October 2020, tinyurl.com/yzudmlfl. Accessed 27 January 2022.

16 “Notificación de acuerdo del 10 de marzo de 2022 del Expediente: IVAI-REV/637/2020/III formado con motivo del recurso de revisión interpuesto contra el Sujeto Obligado: Fiscalía General del Estado de Veracruz,” Instituto Veracruzano de Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos Personales, 14 March 2022, www.documentcloud.org/documents/22122280-ivai-re-637-2020-iii.

17 “Leyes con cero pesos: reformas aprobadas por la 4T, pero sin dar presupuesto”, Expansión, 25 May 2022, https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2022/05/25/leyes-con-cero-pesos-reformas-aprobadas-por-la-4t-pero-sin-dar-presupuesto.

18 “Sigue la búsqueda en fosas de Arbolillo y La Guapota, La Jornada Veracruz, 6 June 2022, https://jornadaveracruz.com.mx/principal/sigue-la-busqueda-en-fosas-de-arbolillo-y-la-guapota.

19 “Brigadas continúan la búsqueda de fosas en Arbolillo y la Guapota”, El Dictamen, 6 June 2022, www.eldictamen.mx/noticias-de-veracruz/boca-ver/brigadas-continuan-la-busqueda-de-fosas-en-arbolillo-y-la-guapota.