Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also known under its Spanish acronym the CJNG, has shared shocking footage which appears to depict one of its hit men eating a human heart straight from the torn-open chest of a fresh corpse. According to media reports, the victim was a member of a rival criminal group.
The video is said to have been shot last month in the state of Zacatecas, which for several years has been a battleground in a brutal turf war between the Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation cartels.
The stomach-churning footage features a CJNG militant crouching over a dead body whose hands had been tied and chest hacked open. The man proceeds to take a few bites of the victim’s heart before mockingly offering the corpse a taste, with another dead body lying beside.
Commenting on the shocking scenes to the Daily Beast outlet, Robert Bunker, a security analyst and expert on Mexican cartels, opined that the video was part of the CJNG’s intimidation tactics.
The criminal group is known for aggressively asserting its dominance by dumping the dead bodies of its rivals and posting videos of its militants driving improvised armored vehicles while toting machine guns and military-grade assault rifles. In recent month, the cartel has also used drones to drop bombs on rival groups.
Although there have been reported cases of cannibalism at the hands of other drug cartels in Mexico over the years, including for ritual purposes, the CJNG has apparently taken the gruesome practice to a whole new level, reportedly making it part of its initiation.
Back in 2015, Alfredo Castillo, Michoacan’s federal security commissioner, told journalists that numerous testimonies suggested that CJNG recruits were made to eat human hearts before they could be inducted into the cartel.
According to the Daily Beast, which cites a CJNG member who agreed to speak to journalists on condition of anonymity, the criminal group runs several training camps, known as ‘terror schools,’ located in rural areas.
Apart from being taught how to use weapons and getting acquainted with various combat tactics, recruits are also allegedly given training in how to “sever the extremities” without letting the victim bleed to death or become unconscious – a key skill needed for inflicting torture later on. According to the anonymous cartel member, the body parts are then fed to the recruits.
They then proceed to learn how to dismember entire corpses and eventually eat internal organs, including hearts. Those who vomit or show discomfort in the process are reportedly beaten up, while trainees who disclose the camp’s location to outsiders or break other key rules are brutally murdered by their own peers.