The ‘miracle’ of homicide reduction in Guanajuato did not protect Jaqueline

Jaqueline’s brother was shot eight times on a ranch in the city of Irapuato, in central Mexico. And, because their mother dared to report the crime, 15 days later, she was also killed. Jacqueline’s father had been murdered a few years earlier. And so, on August 14, 2025, this 18-year-old girl was left alone in the world.

In July, armed men broke into Eva María Vázquez’s home. They executed her son, Jaime González, in his bedroom. And, in the process, the intruders abducted her husband, Francisco Arias. Known as “Panchito,” he belongs to a collective that searches for missing people. She hasn’t heard from him since.

Around that time, La Calera — a clandestine mass grave — was discovered in the same state. The dismembered bodies of 32 people had been left in the yard of an abandoned house.

Pedro Rodríguez, who survived an attempted murder last year, saw how, back in June, on a street parallel to his, gunmen entered a bar and shot down 12 people. “They finished them all off,” he notes.

Guanajuato, a state of just over six million inhabitants, accounts for 11.6% of all murders in the country. Since the beginning of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, it has been a national priority. And today, the state and federal governments identify Guanajuato as one of the most representative states when it comes to the supposed reduction in homicides in Mexico. State Security Secretary Mauro González believes that they’ve achieved “what was thought to be impossible.” Official messages, posted on vehicles and billboards everywhere, announce that the decrease in homicides has reached 60%. The government insists on the accuracy of its figures, but around the kitchen table, residents insist on the number of deaths.

Mexico has just completed its first year with a woman at the helm. Sheinbaum has consolidated a security strategy under her all-powerful federal secretary, Omar García Harfuch. The commitment to giving greater power to the civilian police forces (compared to the Armed Forces) — and putting funds toward investigation and intelligence, coupled with a radical increase in arrests (there have been 32,000 arrests in less than a year across Mexico) — has allowed the president to offer a number: homicides have fallen by 32% during her administration. The 87 daily victims recorded in September of 2024 dropped to 60 this past August. And, in addition to the average, the federal government has presented some states as success stories: Zacatecas, for instance, has reduced the daily number of murders by 82% in the past year. San Luis Potosí has achieved a 71% reduction, while Nuevo León and Guanajuato saw homicides fall by 63% and 41% respectively.

The support from the National Palace has been decisive for Guanajuato, one of the few states in the country controlled by the opposition. Governor Libia García Muñoz — who belongs to the conservative National Action Party (PAN) — won the 2024 elections with the promise of overhauling the controversial state security leadership and halving the sky-high murder rate. Today, it’s no secret that collaboration between the two levels of government has been key to presenting the new results. “The success has also been the trust generated with the authorities at the central level, in Mexico City. That’s fundamental,” Mauro González notes. He’s the secretary in charge of public safety in the state of Guanajuato. “The national strategy and the state strategy go hand in hand.”

The state security czar, who trained in the Federal Police under García Harfuch, lists the other factors behind this so-called “miracle.” A sub-secretariat composed of 250 police officers has been created for investigations (in Mexico, the main investigators are the ministerial agents of the Prosecutor’s Offices, who are overwhelmed with cases). González is betting on a police force “that prevents cases” from occurring. The division has made more than 3,000 arrests (45 of those detained being key perpetrators of violence) and the officers have shared all the data they have with other institutions. “This allows us to prevent many crimes,” the secretary affirms. And all of this, the official insists, is done with the same resources that the agency had before the current administration.

González recounts this inside the government’s crisis room in the C5I (Coordination, Command, Control, Communications, Computing and Intelligence) complex, in front of a circular screen that’s the size of what you find in a movie theater. Real-time images, recorded by thousands of cameras monitoring public spaces, can be seen. “We have to attack crime, we have to be direct with it… and I think the key here is teamwork,” he points out.

As he concludes his interview with EL PAÍS, it’s announced that one of the regional heads of the Attorney General’s Office, Juan Alberto Camarillo, has been shot to death. His body was found dumped on the side of a road.

“Violent day,” the local Irapuato newspapers later proclaim, in capital letters: “Three killed and another three abducted.” The media count closes the day with eight executions in the state: some bodies were “tortured and bound,” while others were found in bags under a playground slide. Some victims were murdered inside their homes and businesses, or were retrieved from the Silao River. A daily routine, in a state where more than 1,900 people have been murdered since January.

The ‘huachicol’ triangle

Guanajuato experienced its criminal escalation between 2017 and 2018. The number of missing persons increased from 620 to more than 2,100, while homicides and massacres soared. This industrial zone, crossed by two of the country’s most important highways, is a key geographical location for the northward movement of drugs, weapons and people. Fuel pipelines also pass through the area, fostering a lucrative business involving hydrocarbon theft, known locally as huachicol.

For the past eight years, in the so-called “huachicol triangle” — the cities of Salamanca, Celaya and Irapuato — violence has reached its peak. The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, “was born in the state — [with the full knowledge of] the authorities — to extract hydrocarbons,” says researcher Fabrizio Lorusso, from the Ibero-American University in the state of León. However, he adds that the local cartel eventually “diversified and became paramilitary,” branching out into extortion, human trafficking, migrant smuggling and drug dealing. This meant taking on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful crime syndicates, to assume control of “the criminal businesses in one of the country’s most prosperous areas, which has grown at twice the national rate in the past. [This is known as] the Industrial Corridor, which connects the Bajío region with Guadalajara and Querétero,” Lorusso explains. The battle continues to this day.

“My brother was one of the first dead,” says Yadira, now 36. Christian, who worked as a cattle rancher, was taken along with his truck on November 28, 2017. He was 25 and had a baby. His sister knew it was him when they found a body dumped on a road near his workplace. “We came from a very quiet city,” she sighs. “Now, it’s rare to have a day when nothing happens.” Those first bodies heralded a radical change in the daily life of a city of sprawling neighborhoods and low-rise houses, home to 600,000 people.

“I have two children and I don’t let them go outside. They can do whatever they want… but they have to do it inside the house. We take them to and from school and home,” the woman confesses. She explains that, as soon as night falls, life in the city shuts down. This week, there was a shooting at a “very family-friendly” restaurant they frequented often. A pregnant woman was also killed in a convenience store. “My 10-year-old daughter told me, ‘Mom, we shouldn’t go anywhere anymore.’”

The fate of Corporal Pedro Rodríguez

“It was my turn,” Pedro Rodríguez told his wife, while crying on a stretcher on February 17 of last year. This man, with large, sad eyes, was a corporal in the Cavalry Battalion. He tells EL PAÍS that he was accompanying his son, a pants tailor, to pick up some fabric. Drug deals were common in the area and many police officers were stationed nearby. That day, Rodríguez was putting the fabrics in the trunk when he heard gunshots.

The modus operandi was standard: two men rode on a motorcycle. One of them, armed, got off and fired his gun. The other waited, with the engine running.

It was the latter who spotted Rodríguez, 60. After several bodies had been left, dead, on the ground, the driver pointed at him directly. This humble man slammed the trunk shut and tried to throw himself into the closest house. He felt his foot and leg explode. He had been shot six times. He was paralyzed.

With no money to pay for an ambulance or a private clinic, his family took him to the cheapest public hospital. He was kept in a guardhouse… until the guards threw him out. “They were afraid [that the killers] would come and finish me off.”

After numerous surgical interventions, Pedro’s life was saved and some of his mobility was restored. He’s now fighting for the Prosecutor’s Office to reclassify the crime of bodily harm (“it wasn’t just a graze, as they say”) to attempted homicide. He wants to be officially recognized as a victim, so he can receive some compensation.

Pedro can no longer operate the sewing machines he used to help his son with. He cannot ride his bicycle to the central market to buy fruit to sell, nor can he work as a chauffeur. He describes all of this to EL PAÍS before walking away with his cane.

Given the situation in Irapuato, Pedro Rodríguez was lucky. So far this year, 137 people have been murdered. 262 were killed in 2024 and 219 in 2023. “They can kill anyone,” each interviewee tells this newspaper. Terror lurks behind that statement. Jaqueline (a fictitious name, utilized for her own safety) knew they were going to kill her brother before it happened. She’d been warned by neighbors that two men were looking for him. “Everyone knew exactly who they were; they weren’t hiding anything. They were already having other problems with the law due to robberies [they had committed],” the teenager says.

Her mother decided to file a complaint after her son was killed. From then on, the criminals began following and harassing the family. They notified the local police, but nobody reacted in time.

On the afternoon of August 14, Jaqueline’s mother went out to the neighborhood store and was shot directly in the head. “She was face down: she looked like she’d fallen, like she’d tripped, like she’d fainted,” her daughter says quietly. “I arrived and, out of helplessness, I hugged her. I said, ‘Mommy, wake up.’”

Jaqueline no longer wants to report her mother’s murder, even though the Prosecutor’s Office is expected to investigate the case. Today, she lives in fear at a relative’s house, while she tries to get her sister — who lives in the United States — to do the paperwork required to bring her there with her: “I would dare to file a complaint from [the U.S.],” she says.

The national map of atrocities

Jaqueline, Pedro and Yadira are part of Una luz en el camino (A Light Along the Path). This collective, which already represents 1,200 homicide cases and 100 disappearances in the city of Irapuato and its surrounding areas, was formed by Norma Patricia Barrón after her son Kevin and husband Juan were kidnapped in 2019. She paid one million pesos, around $55,000, as a ransom, but they were never returned to her.

Barrón’s fight led to the imprisonment of three individuals — one intellectual author and two material authors of the crime — belonging to the Jalisco New Generational Cartel. Since then, she has lived under the protection of the National Guard. Officers accompany her as she undertakes searches for the bodies of missing people.

In a courtyard, just before the rain begins to fall, she recounts the latest discoveries. In one case, on a single street in the city, 30 bodies were removed from several safe houses that belong to organized criminal groups. “No, it’s impossible that things have gotten better. If anything, [they’re] worse,” she concludes.

These horrific findings, Fabrizio Lorusso reflects, are part of what prevents the population from feeling that the level of security is improving. A specialist in disappearances, he details that the “perception of security has [actually] worsened due to the terrifying impact of many atrocious acts, such as clandestine graves, mass disappearances and massacres, which have not abated.”

“On the national map of atrocities,” the academic emphasizes, “Guanajuato appears at the top. This speaks to the deterioration [of the situation] and continuity of the most brutal criminal phenomenon.”

Lorusso also points out that the official figures always pose a “problem.”

“The reduction in homicides varies depending on the period. If I choose the month [with the highest number of killings] and compare it to the [month with the] lowest, the reduction will be greater.” Meanwhile, the researcher, who is also the founder of the Platform for Peace and Justice in Guanajuato, presents other data: there are now more than 5,100 missing persons in the state. Additionally, 150 clandestine graves have been discovered, with almost total impunity in all cases.

None of the people that EL PAÍS spoke to have received any information about progress being made on their case files in recent years.

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani.

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