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Bodies found near Lake Chapala

15432 Views 90 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  edgeee, 
Detailman
Just read about this on a number of different news sites. 15 - 18 bodies in two vans on a dirt access road just outside of Lake Chapala. Below is one site.

http://www.sunherald.com/2012/05/09/v-print/3937617/police-find-bodies-near-mexican.html

Apparent that deaths are related to the ongoing drug wars between the cartels.

Sad it is getting closer to Lakeside but that is the increasingly violent world we are living in. :(
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FHBOY
D:
I'd like to hear from the Lakeside people - how much play did this incident get? What is the effect on the community?

I should hope the "Chicken Little" effect doesn't take hold.

:D But wait a second, if it does, does that mean expats will be leaving in droves, reducing the cost of buying a house there, bringing prices down in general? Hey, so what's the problem1 :D

NOTE - link didn't work, have to register to read it.
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FHBOY said:
D:
I'd like to hear from the Lakeside people - how much play did this incident get? What is the effect on the community?

I should hope the "Chicken Little" effect doesn't take hold.

:D But wait a second, if it does, does that mean expats will be leaving in droves, reducing the cost of buying a house there, bringing prices down in general? Hey, so what's the problem1 :D

NOTE - link didn't work, have to register to read it.
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Take a look at the Guad Reporter, there's an article there also.

Guadalajara Reporter

It also looks like there were 4 more deaths and 15 or so escapees.
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Detailman
FHBOY said:
D:
I'd like to hear from the Lakeside people - how much play did this incident get? What is the effect on the community?

I should hope the "Chicken Little" effect doesn't take hold.

:D But wait a second, if it does, does that mean expats will be leaving in droves, reducing the cost of buying a house there, bringing prices down in general? Hey, so what's the problem1 :D

NOTE - link didn't work, have to register to read it.
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Sorry about that. If a person googles "bodies in van in lake chapala area" they will find numerous news sites reporting on it.

Fact is that Lakeside is still safer than many places in the USA. (Not so bad in Canada as most regular folks don't have guns due to our laws.)

BUT - about a week ago a Vancouver drug dealer was killed in Mexico and the police here in Vancouver were worried about retribution. In the last week there have been two or three drug hits. (They didn't miss so deaths were involved.)

I live here and it means virtually nothing to my safety because I avoid certain areas and if I was going to go out at night there are many high end entertainment places that I would also avoid. Some restaurants also. I say high end places as those are often frequented by gang members who are rolling in cash. Common sense dictates, as always.

I like your comment about any "chicken littles." Right or wrong, others can benefit from exagerated fears.
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conorkilleen
You guys will be just fine. I live in Monterrey and I am just fine. Just dont do drugs, dont buy drugs, dont sell drugs, or otherwise get mixed up in shady activity. Keep your nose clean and eyes in back of your heads. Dont go to known bad areas at night and/or during the day.

Always remember you are not living in the US and comparing crime in Lake Chapala to the crime in the US is laughable. I take everything I said about people in LC and Ajijic being "Bubble Pats". Even the worst of it is in your back yard.

Be safe and follow the above rules.

PS- I would love to buy some property down in LC at a bargain price. Keep me posted.
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Detailman
conorkilleen said:
You guys will be just fine. I live in Monterrey and I am just fine. Just dont do drugs, dont buy drugs, dont sell drugs, or otherwise get mixed up in shady activity. Keep your nose clean and eyes in back of your heads. Dont go to known bad areas at night and/or during the day.

Always remember you are not living in the US and comparing crime in Lake Chapala to the crime in the US is laughable. I take everything I said about people in LC and Ajijic being "Bubble Pats". Even the worst of it is in your back yard.

Be safe and follow the above rules.

PS- I would love to buy some property down in LC at a bargain price. Keep me posted.
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AGREED! On your first paragraph I achieve 100%. :)

Your comments are right on and you are in a position to make those comments because of living in Monterrey. So many problems could be solved by common sense but unfortunately it seems to be in short supply in today's society.
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S
You could post these types of messages everyday if you followed the drug wars. I suggest you put it on the 'back burner' and keep it in perspective

Location: Lower Mainland, British Columbia
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conorkilleen
sparks said:
You could post these types of messages everyday if you followed the drug wars. I suggest you put it on the 'back burner' and keep it in perspective

Location: Lower Mainland, British Columbia
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yup. This type of thing happens almost every week in Nuevo Leon and Monterrey (Sinaloa too just recently with all of the fighting in the mountains this week)

Whenever I see this type of stuff up here in the North, I just think to myself - "Would I rather see a van full of chopped up BAD guys or chopped up GOOD guys?"

Think.
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FHBOY
I don't live there (yet) but I looked a a map. Saying this crime took place near Chapala/Ajijic, is like saying a murder in the Bronx was near Times Square. The town where they were found is on the other side of the mountain (so it appears) that you go over to get to Lakeside, a town not known for an expat population. The article said the perps planned to dump the bodies in Chapala/Ajijic, that never happened either.

When I get there, I will be concerned if and when this type of crime occurs closer to home, the executions and shootings, not dumping the bodies. Choosing where we have chosen to settle still seems safer than using the same criteria to measure danger in the Baltimore suburbs. We are only 5-8 miles, although it is another world, from where crime is committed regularly.

I'll take those odds.
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G
Over the past two weeks or so a number of young men from Chapala, Ajijic and San Juan Cosala have been kidnapped. I believe some from Jocotopec as well but not 100% sure. By all accounts these young men were not into drugs, weapons, and had not witnessed anything untoward. One of them is a friend of two friends of mine (young Mexican men) and one was the son of a well known local restaurant owner in San Antonio. These three and more local boys have been among the bodies identified from the two vehicles left in Ixtlahuacan.

The prevailing theory among people I give most credence to is that they were taken to boost the body count of the Zeta's, who were planning on dumping the bodies closer to Lakeside but were thwarted in that plan when a safe house was discovered in Jalisco on Tuesday.

The belief is they were going to retaliate for the bodies left hanging in Nuevo Laredo a week or so ago and were just grabbing any young men to stage them as rival cartel members and do their macho thing.

It is very very sad to see the mothers and grandmothers of these young men, to see the banners hanging over the roads pleading for their return.

Up until this week I felt safe believing most of the victims were involved in the underworld. Not any more.

The range of fear here is varied. Some expats seem to thrive on the drama, some like to bury their heads in the sand and most of us just want to know more, to separate the truth from the rumours and stories and to make some sense out of it.

I had a really hard day today knowing it was Mother's Day here and knowing these young men would never come home.

It is frustrating to try to find the truth when journalists are threatened and killed, and when the rumour mill runs rampant.

I am not leaving, but I suspect a few expats might use this event to reconsider their long term plans. There are already a huge number of residences on the market and few seem to be moving. I still maintain the personal belief that housing prices here have not dropped to reflect the shrinking market of buyers but many disagree with me.

Please say a prayer or light a candle for the innocents lost in this senseless war. I personally do not give a rats patootie if narcos want to blow each other up but when they deliberately involve innocents that is the lowest of the low.
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G
FHBOY said:
I don't live there (yet) but I looked a a map. Saying this crime took place near Chapala/Ajijic, is like saying a murder in the Bronx was near Times Square. The town where they were found is on the other side of the mountain (so it appears) that you go over to get to Lakeside, a town not known for an expat population. The article said the perps planned to dump the bodies in Chapala/Ajijic, that never happened either.

When I get there, I will be concerned if and when this type of crime occurs closer to home, the executions and shootings, not dumping the bodies. Choosing where we have chosen to settle still seems safer than using the same criteria to measure danger in the Baltimore suburbs. We are only 5-8 miles, although it is another world, from where crime is committed regularly.

I'll take those odds.
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FhBoy just to clarify, Ixtlahuacan is over the mountain but most of us consider it a part of the lakeside community. There are a growing number of expats living there and many of us visit the market and restaurants there.

And the word from the captured Zeta woman is that they planned on dumping the bodies in Ajijic but when the location was discovered the kidnappers fled and some hostages were released. The plans changed. Of course no one really knows 100% what the whole truth is but I think it is fairly safe to accept this version as close to the truth.

The bodies were refrigerated after death so they were not killed and beheaded lakeside. There is a battle over control of this area however. I have not seen much increased police presence and no army or military checkpoints. I personally believe they are badly needed here for the long term and am a bit perplexed as to why this hasn't happened yet.

As I said in my previous post I am not leaving. I still feel as safe here as I did last month, but I do keep my wits about me, as my granny used to say. I still go out at night and drive alone to Guad and other places. And I am preparing myself for more of the ugliness to happen here. I hope I am wrong.
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Detailman
sparks said:
You could post these types of messages everyday if you followed the drug wars. I suggest you put it on the 'back burner' and keep it in perspective

Location: Lower Mainland, British Columbia
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Sparks:

Could you please clarify your comment about "location." Are you currently in the Lower Mainland, BC?

And could you please expand on putting something that I read in the news on the "back burner" and keeping it in perspective. Not sure where you are coming from and I would not want to comment on something prior to understanding the comment. :confused2:
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FHBOY
Maybe with my background as a New Yorker I cannot stir up enough alarm in myself to begin to reconsider my plans. Does it mean I have become enured to death and violence? No, not at all.

Grizzy tells the human side of a story like this and if I had known the players it too would have affected me, as it did her. Her feelings are hers and feelings are genuine and cannot be argued with. But I notice that she is not giving into fear, but taking those extra precautions one takes when something happens. Considering the frequency of event such as this, a hunker down, bunker mentality, flee the area approach does not seem warranted.

When she recounted that people unrelated to the drug cartels had been targeted, my reaction was that it was more a ransom - son of a restaurant owner - situation. Still, and this sounds terrible, it is not expats that are being targeted, it is rather locals (which does not make it less heinous). Again it sounds horrible, but I'd much more reconsider my move if there were a string of attacks on, murders of, kidnapping of expats in Ajijic.

Drawing again on the New York and Baltimore background, it is a matter of who you are, where you live and what steps you take that makes you safer. Notice I did not say safe, but safer - because be it there or here no one, except someone who lives in a closet, is totally safe.

Will there be a mass exodus of expats from Lakeside? Of course not, the news will be around for a while, some, like Grizzy, will be more affected than others, and life will go on. The odds, as I have said, are still infavor of moving/living there for us.
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@Grizzy, I live in Chapala and the scuttlebutt here amongst many that I know matches your scenario and belief. These were innocents and used as pawns for basically intimidation purposes. Sad, very sad. Up until now, as you stated, I wasn't concerned for my well being since I'm not involved in drugs and I didn't fear being the innocent bystander since that can happen anywhere.

I'm not scared however reality is setting in big time.
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Detailman said:
Sorry about that. If a person googles "bodies in van in lake chapala area" they will find numerous news sites reporting on it.

Fact is that Lakeside is still safer than many places in the USA. (Not so bad in Canada as most regular folks don't have guns due to our laws.)

BUT - about a week ago a Vancouver drug dealer was killed in Mexico and the police here in Vancouver were worried about retribution. In the last week there have been two or three drug hits. (They didn't miss so deaths were involved.)

I live here and it means virtually nothing to my safety.....

I like your comment about any "chicken littles." Right or wrong, others can benefit from exagerated fears.
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" Right or wrong, others can benefit from exagerated fears." And how is that?
Exagerated fears are fears that....what?
How about a woman and her 3 daughters are kidnapped, 50% are dead. What about that as compared to a score of gangbangers dead?
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G
There is random violent crime all over the world. In Vancouver, in my upscale suburb a number of drug gang leaders were gunned down in their million dollar driveways in the 3 or 4 years prior to me moving. Did it scare me? Not really.

Random violence is rampant in the US and is increasing in Canada. Mexicans have lived with the graphic violence of the cartels for a long time. Is it worse for them or for students of a school that has been shot up, or for a family whose loved ones were senselessly gunned down? I don't know. I think grief and shock are pretty universally hard.

I noticed last night, or in the middle of the night really as my insomnia kicked in, that four new houses were listed on the mls site yesterday. I doubt they were directly related to the recent events lakeside, however I do think that these events slowly convince people to relocated.

For me, putting what happened and how I felt in writing was very cathartic. Nothing has really changed for my day to day life and for that I am thankful. But when I heard the bells for mass for the dead boys this morning it sounded more personal for me. I am lucky. I can live in a secure home and afford to be careful about where and when I leave. Most Mexicans don't have the luxury of that kind of safety.

Is it better or worse than other countries? I don't think it is worse on a risk level. But I think the scope of the horrors and the randomness does have a very negative effect on people. It was a lot easier when I really believed that those killed were involved in the cartel life. When innocents are taken and no ransom is asked for, when young men disappear for no reason other than being outside in daylight, the veneer of self righteousness wears off.

FHBOy this is still a beautiful, safe place to live. The people still smile and greet you warmly and life goes on. I guess we all just wait for the next shoe to drop now.
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This is a very sad commentary on what it going on in Mexico. I know for a fact that at least one of the dead had nothing to do with anything he was just kidnapped to add to the body count. (he was our gardener)

This 'body count' was built in order to show how "bad" the Zeta's were and to keep the other cartels at bay. They wanted to equalize the 25 body count of Zetas that were found a few weeks ago.

Yes it is sad and even sadder when you know someone involved. But this is an innocent death just the same as it would be NOB. In every war innocents are hurt and killed. The sadness is still there and the hurt that you can do little to stop it or protect yourself other than take the normal precautions.

If you want to live your life looking over your shoulder you could do so in most NOB cities. I for one choose to not be overly concerned with the 'over the shoulder' mode and just live my life as best I can.

I will do whatever I can to help the widow and her children and I will morn the loss of a smiley face three times a week.
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conorkilleen
If you have eyes in the back of your head then you don't need to look over your shoulder. Through some training in a "past life", I have leaned to have a keen sense, even behind me. Literally, looking over your shoulder constantly gives the potential perp a sense that you are insecure about your surroundings and going to make mistakes when confronted with violence.
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Detailman
conorkilleen said:
If you have eyes in the back of your head then you don't need to look over your shoulder. Through some training in a "past life", I have leaned to have a keen sense, even behind me. Literally, looking over your shoulder constantly gives the potential perp a sense that you are insecure about your surroundings and going to make mistakes when confronted with violence.
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I think you and I have experienced the same training in the past.

I always go by that inner sense and tell my wife to do so.

I can only remember one time when I ignored it. I had a strong inner feeling about the person behind me in a line up (just bad vibes although I had not looked at him but knew I should due to the circumstances).. Stupid mistake. :mad: We were in a line up in the bank. I went to one teller he went to the other teller "and robbed the bank" as I stood at the next teller. :mad:

Told myself: Never again ignore those innner feelings. Those type of feelings have saved many a life of both men and woman.

The "experts" will tell you to go by those feelings.
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conorkilleen
knowing what not to do is almost more valuable than knowing what to do.
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