The victims were making a short film at a house for a university project, and were surrounded by armed gangsters and two trucks after their car broke down on their way home
A group of film students were kidnapped, tortured and dissolved in acid by a cartel after accidentally provoking the bloodthirsty gang.
Javier Salomón Aceves Gastélum, Jesús Daniel Díaz and Marco Ávalos, all in their 20s, were making a short film at a house in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico for a university project. On their way back home, their car broke down and they got out to check the problem. They were suddenly surrounded by two trucks and several members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) disguised as police. The CJNG had mistook them for members of a rival gang – and the students were reportedly filming at a ranch which was being watched by CJNG members who were waiting for a rival gang leader.
The students were seized and taken to a house in the town of Tonala in 2018. Javier was brutally interrogated before being beaten to death – at which point the cartel decided to kill his two friends as well. To dispose of the evidence, the CJNG then tasked one of its recruits with dissolving the bodies in acid.
Mexican rapper Christian Palma Gutiérrez, better known as QBA, was paid 3,000 pesos ($160; £115) a week by the CJNG and was recruited by a friend to work for the evil gang. Gutiérrez – who has over 315,000 subscribers on YouTube – released several music videos shot in poor neighbourhoods of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco. One of the twisted songs features a bloodied man lying on the floor with his hands tied.
With names like “Death Has No Schedule”, Gutierrez sings about violence, weapons and drugs in a menacing tone. In 2014, five men linked to the CJNG were sentenced by a federal court to 75 years in prison each, for aggravated kidnapping and the murder of the three students. The CJNG has expanded rapidly across Mexico in recent years, and operates mainly in the west of the country. Its members routinely carry out brutal acts of violence to intimidate their rivals.
The cartel has downed an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killed hundreds of state officials and has hanged the bodies of its victims from bridges to intimidate its rivals.
It has also forced new recruits to feast on human flesh and carry out beheadings in its infamous “terror schools”. One anonymous recruit previously told the DailyBeast.com : “I’ve been there and there was a lot of [cannibalism]. “They recruit them and then they start working on them.” First, CJNG members are taught how to cut off their victims’ fingers and toes, one of the cartel’s preferred torture methods.
The source went on: “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.”
