A barbaric drug cartel is coercing new members to engage in acts of cannibalism and carry out decapitations in its notorious “terror training camps.”
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has rapidly expanded its presence in Mexico, primarily operating in the western regions of the country. Known for their extreme violence, CJNG members regularly commit gruesome acts to instill fear in their adversaries. The cartel has shot down an army helicopter using a rocket-propelled grenade, assassinated numerous state officials, and displayed the bodies of their victims on bridges as a warning to rivals. At CJNG training facilities located in secluded rural areas, recruits are taught combat techniques and how to handle firearms.
During a period of three to four months, recruits are also indoctrinated into acts of cannibalism. A former recruit, who chose to remain anonymous, revealed to the DailyBeast.com: “I witnessed a lot of [cannibalism] during my time there. They recruit individuals and then subject them to such practices.” Initially, CJNG members are trained to sever the fingers and toes of their victims, a preferred method of torture by the cartel.
The source elaborated: “Recruits are given a choice to consume a piece of the victim in front of the leader. They must do so without any reaction or face repercussions. Refusal to participate results in punishment and confinement.”
Upon proving their allegiance, members progress to learning how to dismember entire bodies. One individual, identified by the alias Francisco, recounted being deceived into joining a CJNG camp in the mountains of Guadalajara under the guise of a security job offer.
At the camp, gang members executed a man for failing to assemble a firearm. Francisco was then compelled to sever the man’s hand and consume a portion of the corpse. He recalled: “I had no choice but to comply. I can still recall the fear and blood.” Another survivor from a training camp disclosed that the least assertive recruit in his cohort was instructed to decapitate a rival and crush the head with a stone. In a separate incident, an instructor forced a recruit who vomited part of a body to consume it after retrieving it from the ground.
In a disturbing incident from last year, video footage surfaced showing CJNG members extracting and consuming the hearts of rival individuals, while taunting their deceased enemies. Besides desensitizing new members, the cartel utilizes such brutal tactics to instill fear in local communities and solidify its control over the drug trade.
Amid the pandemic, three individuals, including a pregnant woman, were found in critical condition with severed hands after CJNG accused them of theft. Their mutilated bodies were discovered in a truck in Guanajuato. A message left with one of the bodies stated: “This fate awaits those who engage in theft and disrespect hardworking individuals.”
To eliminate evidence, the cartel resorts to dissolving victims in acid baths. In a case from 2018, Mexican rapper Christian Palma Gutiérrez confessed to disposing of three missing film students’ bodies by dissolving them in acid. He admitted receiving payment from CJNG to carry out the act, as they mistakenly believed the students belonged to a rival gang and subsequently abducted and tortured them.
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