On Friday, Sinaloa Cartel enforcer Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo (aka El Marrufo) was arrested by Mexican authorities.
According to Mexican federal police official Ramon Eduardo Pequeno García, Maruffo is responsible for masterminding a massacre at a drug rehab center in downtown Juarez in 2009.
In September 2009, several gunmen armed with AK-47s stormed into the Casa El Aliviane drug rehab facility, and ordered all 20 of the inhabitants to line up against a wall. They were all cut down in a matter of seconds, only three survived.
Police found all but two of the dead bodies clumped together in a sickening pile. The victims ranged in age from 17 to 51.
An unidentified Juarez police officer told the Norte de Ciudad that the massacre left behind “a river of blood.”
Many of the bodies were so bullet ridden, they had to be identified by their tattoos.
Executive director of the Texas Narcotics Officers Association Robert Almonte, told the El Paso Times: “I think the significance [in this latest attack] is in the number of people killed but these were street-level people, [drug] users or gang members.”
Almonet continued: “Why would anybody want to kill drug addicts? Because they are affiliated with a cartel. It's a sad situation.”
While the mass shooting represented the worst multiple-murder incident in Juarez history, it was not the first time a drug rehab center in that city had been attacked.
-In June 2009, five people were killed when gunmen burst into another center. Most of the 50 patients and staff escaped that shooting by climbing over a wall behind the building.
-In August 2008, paramilitary gunmen wearing body armor burst into another rehab center in Juarez, and dragged several patients outside and executed them. A religious ceremony was taking place at the time of the attack. Eight people, including a pastor were killed and six more were seriously wounded.
Both Mexican and U.S. law enforcement report that the notoriously violent Mexican drug gang known as the Aztecas, along with their U.S. counterparts the Barrio Aztecas actually run drug rehab centers for their drug-addicted members in the city of Juarez. That gang has aligned itself with the Juarez Cartel.
According to Mexican police official Pequeño García, Marrufo has led the violent gang known as Artistas Asesinos since 2009. The Asesinos who are aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel have been at war with the Barrio Aztecas for control of the drug distribution routes around the Juarez/El Paso area.
Shortly after the Casa El Aliviane massacre, Mexico’s Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, told the Associated Press that many rehab centers are actually used as recruitment and training facilities by the cartels.
Luna said that a drug dealer with La Familia Cartel actually oversaw several private drug rehab clinics throughout western Michoacan. The drug dealer in question, Rafael Cedeno, claims to have trained 9,000 recruits for the cartel in 2008 alone.
Comments