Mexican soldiers arrest boy, 14, who says he's gang's hired gun

[Angelhair]

ANTONIO SIERRA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Edgar Jimenez Lugo, 14, says he worked as a $3,000-per-hit assassin for a drug cartel. He was arrested late Thursday. .
..MEXICO CITY - In a case that has shocked Mexicans, a 14-year-old youth told journalists Friday that he's a highly sought "boy assassin" who guns down and beheads people for a drug gang.

Soldiers arrested the boy, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, on Thursday night as he prepared to board a flight from Cuernavaca, a tourist destination south of the capital, to Tijuana, where he planned to cross the border to his mother's residence in the San Diego area.

The case highlights concern about the falling ages of foot soldiers in Mexico's ongoing drug violence, which has left more than 30,000 people dead since late 2006. The youth said he had been killing already for three years.

News reports said Jimenez was a U.S. citizen, although U.S. Embassy spokesman Alex Featherstone said, "We have not confirmed this boy's citizenship."

Security agents had been hunting for Jimenez since late October, when a video was posted on the Internet of the boy, holding an AK-47 assault weapon and posing with other gang members.

On the video, Jimenez casually says that he didn't care whether he and his fellow gunmen got the right targets.

Mexican soldiers arrest boy, 14, who says he's gang's hired gun

 

[Angelhair]

Can mexicans be shocked still???? Arresting a 14 yr old should be no shock to anybody living in Mexico. Is it not as shoking to see decapitated bodies hanging from a bridge??? How shocking can it be when a 14 yr old is arrested in a country who has never had the ability to protect its citizens and make them obey whatever laws they have???? How shocking can it be when the majority of the crimes committed in Mexico go unsolved or unpunished and this has been going on for decades and decades??? How shocking can any of this be to the mexican people when they have suffered and seen more atrocities in one day that we see in a life time??? Crimes committed by 14yr olds and under are not uncommon in third world countries and of course they do happen here and in other industrialized countries - so really, how shocking can it be????

 

[Wolfmoon]

14-year-old cartel assassin?s mom arrested in San Diego - San Diego County Political Buzz | Examiner.com

14-year-old cartel assassin’s mom arrested in San Diego


"The mother of the suspected 14-year-old cartel assassin responsible for at least four beheadings has been arrested and charged with being in the United States illegally. Border Patrol agents arrested Yolanda Lugo Jimenez, 43, at her San Diego apartment on Monday according to a federal complaint. Court documents show Lugo was deported in September of 1997."

 

[waltky]

Update: El Ponchis on trial for beheadings...

US Teen Accused of Being a Drug Cartel Hitman on Trial in Mexico
July 20, 2011 - A teenaged boy accused of being a drug cartel hitman has gone on trial in Mexico. Edgar Jimenez Lugo, who was born in the United States, is charged with killing and mutilating four people.

The victims' bodies were found strung from a bridge last year in the central Mexican resort town of Cuernavaca, in Morelos state, outside of Mexico City. In a video interview Lugo says he felt bad committing the murders, but feared for his own life if he did not carry out the orders of the South Pacific drug cartel.

The maximum penalty for a juvenile convicted of crimes in Mexico is a three year prison sentence. The trial is expected to last two weeks and will include the testimony of at least 60 witnesses. The 14-year-old Lugo, nicknamed "el Ponchis" or "the Cloak" was captured in December as he tried to board a flight in Tijuana, Mexico bound for San Diego, California.

The Mexican Network for the Rights of Childhood says at least 15,000 minors have been recruited to commit crimes for the drug cartels. More than 41,000 people have died in violence linked to Mexico's drug gangs since President Felipe Calderon initiated a military crackdown on them in December, 2006.

Source

 

[Moving to USA]

If only he could have made it to the U.S
He would have been given the illegal welcome basket full of social service vouchers and been added to the list of recipients names on the dream act bill.

 

[Nate]

The maximum penalty for a juvenile convicted of crimes in Mexico is a three year prison sentence. The trial is expected to last two weeks and will include the testimony of at least 60 witnesses. The 14-year-old Lugo, nicknamed "el Ponchis" or "the Cloak" was captured in December as he tried to board a flight in Tijuana, Mexico bound for San Diego, California.

The max sentence would be 3 years for murdering and beheading at least 4 people!?! That's insane! That little demon needs to be put down... No fixing that!

 

[Moving to USA]

The maximum penalty for a juvenile convicted of crimes in Mexico is a three year prison sentence. The trial is expected to last two weeks and will include the testimony of at least 60 witnesses. The 14-year-old Lugo, nicknamed "el Ponchis" or "the Cloak" was captured in December as he tried to board a flight in Tijuana, Mexico bound for San Diego, California.

The max sentence would be 3 years for murdering and beheading at least 4 people!?! That's insane! That little demon needs to be put down... No fixing that!

The only difference here with that age group is that the conviction would be maximum till he was 18, then a psyc evaul would determin if he were to get out or be transferred to a mental institute for rehabilitation.
Unless he were tried as an adult.

 

[Trajan]

14, who says he's gang's hired gun

I hate to admit this but it surprises me not at all.

 

[High_Gravity]

14, who says he's gang's hired gun

I hate to admit this but it surprises me not at all.

Yup, theres alot of teenage hired guns in Mexico. Assassins too.

 

[LilOlLady]

Mexican teenage girls train as drug cartel killers
'Organized crime has become a job provider for a section of the population who don't have a lot of other options'

By Dave Graham
Reuters
6/20/2011

MEXICO CITY — Dwarfed by surrounding reporters and with her head bowed to avoid the television cameras, the slender 16-year-old hesitated slightly before she answered the question. "I'm a hitwoman," she said.

Maria Celeste Mendoza was among 10 suspected gang members, including four teen girls and two young women, arrested this week by police after a shootout with authorities in central Mexico, one of the growing ranks of young people working for the country's drug cartels.

Teen girls train as drug cartel killers - World news - Americas - msnbc.com

 

[LilOlLady]

The unemployment rate in Mexico was last reported at 5.2 percent in May of 2011. From 2000 until 2010, Mexico's Unemployment Rate averaged 3.45 percent ...

They blame it on unemployment?

 

[Article 15]

Bump for the Messican propagandists.

 

[waltky]

That's 9 months per head...

Teen gets 3 years for 4 beheadings
July 26, 2011 -- Edgar Jimenez Lugo, 15, was sentenced to three years in juvenile detention in Mexico Tuesday for beheading four men on the orders of a drug cartel.

Lugo, who was born on San Diego, before sentencing was found guilty of the August 2010 slayings in which four headless bodies were strung from a highway bridge in Cuernavaca, Mexico, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Lugo was arrested Dec. 2 as he and his sister tried to fly from Tijuana to their mother's home in San Diego. He received the maximum sentence of three years in juvenile detention, Morelos juvenile state court spokesman Carlos Castro Elizondo said.

Read more: Teen gets 3 years for 4 beheadings - UPI.com

 

[Wolfmoon]

A ‘godfather’ sentenced

U.S. prosecutors have won stiff sentences for Mexican traffickers in recent years, often in cooperation with Mexican authorities. A Mexican “padrote,” or godfather, from a trafficking stronghold in Tlaxcala state, got 40 years in Atlanta in March for forcing 10 girls, one of them 14, into immigrating north for prostitution. If they refused, he beat them.

 

[waltky]

Cops trailed him right to his lair...

13-Year Old Hit Man Killed in Mexico Along with 5 Others
March 01, 2013 – Police in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas on Thursday found the bodies of six people, including a 13-year-old boy who had been arrested on Feb. 4 as a presumed murderer but was released a few hours later due to his age, a government official said.

The six bodies showed signs of torture and were found Thursday morning on the outskirts of the towns of Morelos and Vetagrande, the head of the Zacatecas state prosecutor's office, Arturo Nahle, told reporters. According to witnesses quoted by the Zacatecas daily NTR, shots were heard in the area at about 2 a.m., presumably emanating from a clash between rival criminal bands. The bodies - four of them women - were found after an anonymous telephone call was received by the local emergency services department, the daily said.

The Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico calculates that between 15,000 and 20,000 minors are the victims of various kinds of "narco-exploitation." Here, the Mexican army escorts another suspected child assassin, 14-year-old "El Ponchis," who was captured last year trying to flee Tijuana.

The boy whose lifeless body was found with the others had been arrested on Feb. 4 for allegedly participating in 10 killings. Despite the fact that he admitted being the killer in three of the murders, he was released a few hours later. The boy's release came as a result of the Zacatecas Justice for Adolescents Law, which allows the prosecution of supposed criminals only if they are 14 years of age or older.

Due to the public indignation sparked by the release of a confessed murderer, Nahle proposed reducing the minimum age set by the law to punish younger killers. He called the boy extremely dangerous. Although no precise figures exist on the number of children and teenagers who might be involved with criminal groups around the country, the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico calculates that between 15,000 and 20,000 minors are the victims of various kinds of "narco-exploitation."

Read more: 13-Year Old Hit Man Killed in Mexico Along with 5 Others | Fox News Latino

 

[longknife]

Please note the confessed assassin was 13 when they arrested him. Mexican law has no charges that can be made against a 13 year old so they had to let him go.

But, once any of these people get spot-lighted in the media, they're fresh meat for the cartels.

 

[waltky]

Teenage Cartel Killer Released Into US...

Teen cartel killer released in Mexico, goes to US
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 — A 17-year-old U.S. citizen who acknowledged being a killer for a Mexican drug cartel finished his three-year juvenile-offender term for homicide, kidnapping and drug and weapons possession and returned to the United States.

The interior secretary of southern Morelos state, Jorge Messeguer, said Edgar Jimenez Lugo had been released, though he added it wasn't clear if the teen had been rehabilitated. "Being able to say whether he's been rehabilitated, that would be risky. I wouldn't really dare say that, because obviously the crimes he committed were so severe," Messeguer said. He said Jimenez went to San Antonio, Texas, where he has family and apparently will go to a residential support facility there, though he didn't know its name.

It does not appear Jimenez faces any charges in the United States. The U.S. Embassy said it would not publicly discuss the case due to privacy considerations. The embassy said in a statement that it was "closely coordinating with our Mexican counterparts and appropriate authorities in the United States" regarding the release. In 2011, at age 14, Jimenez confessed to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were found suspended from a bridge.

He was born in San Diego, California, but was raised in Mexico by his grandmother. Authorities quoted Jimenez as saying he had been forcibly recruited by drug traffickers when he was 11 and confessing to working for the South Pacific drug cartel, led by reputed drug lord Hector Beltran Leyva. Jimenez was trying to return to the United States when he was caught in 2010.

He and a sister were arrested in Morelos, south of Mexico City, as they tried to board a plane to Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and reunite with their mother in San Diego. When he was handed over to federal prosecutors, the boy calmly said in front of cameras that he participated in four killings while drugged and under threat. The bodies were found in the tourist city of Cuernavaca, which is in Morelos. Jimenez served his three-year sentence, the maximum for juveniles, at a juvenile detention center in Morelos. The states was formerly controlled by the Beltran Leyva gang, which broke up after alleged leader Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a shootout with Mexican marines in 2009.

Teen cartel killer released in Mexico, goes to US | Boston Herald