A man accused of helping a Mexican drug kingpin dispose of hundreds of victims by dissolving their bodies in acid was arrested in the border city of Tijuana, authorities said on Friday.
A Mexican military statement said Santiago Meza Lopez confessed to disposing of at least 300 bodies over a decade, but authorities provided no further evidence to back the claim. Officials contend he dumped the bodies in graves, poured acid on them and let them dissolve underground.
The victims are believed to be rivals of Teodoro Garcia Simental, an alleged former lieutenant of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel, authorities said.
PHOTO: AP
Soldiers and police paraded Meza, 45, before reporters at a cement-block shack on the outskirts of Tijuana where he allegedly disposed of the bodies. Two grave-sized holes had been dug near the walls.
The security officers had Meza tell reporters how he allegedly got rid of the bodies, prodding him to speak up whenever he mumbled.
Meza, who has not yet been charged, was arrested along with three other people on Thursday at a Tijuana hotel. He told reporters on Friday that he got paid US$600 a week for his work and repeated his claim that he had disposed of 300 bodies.
This month, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identified Garcia as one of 10 men it believed were battling for drug trafficking routes through Tijuana. The DEA said Garcia was the chief rival of alleged Arellano Felix cartel leader Fernando Sanchez Arrellano.
Mexican officials have blamed the power struggle for a surge in violence in Tijuana, the birthplace of the Arellano Felix cartel.
The two men split in April after a shootout between their followers in Tijuana left at least 14 people dead, Mexican and US officials said.
The Arellano Felix cartel rose to power in the 1980s. Since 2002, four brothers who led the cartel have been killed or arrested, most recently Eduardo Arellano Felix, who was captured in October in his Tijuana home.
Mexico’s drug violence has surged and grown more gruesome in recent years, particularly in northern border cities Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Drug violence claimed more than 5,300 lives last year.
In one case last year, authorities said they found human teeth and other remains inside barrels of acid left on a Tijuana street.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS