Imagine being kidnapped by the Mexican drug Cartel for months, not knowing whether or not they will kill you and melt your body in acid. Imagine being held in narco captivity, in a dungeon, right here in the United States. Thats what happened to the man who shoebat.com just recently interviewed:

“They kill them. They put them in acid. They melt them.” These are the words of a man who was held captive and kept locked up by a Mexican cartel, not just in Mexico, but in the United States where major narco networks are keeping humans in houses and threatening them with death and torture if their families do not pay ransom. It is a sinister apparatus that is much bigger than what most people think. Its not just in Mexico, but right here within the United States. We had the chance to meet this man who was held captive by the Cartel del Noreste — a powerful cartel that has its drug and extortion empire within the Mexican state of Sonora, where kidnappings and exploitation are ubiquitous. Human beings who try to cross the border from Sonora are open to be kidnapped by the Cartel del Noreste who then keep their victims in congested rooms, giving them hope of being released before demanding more money and keeping them in a hopeless loop. The man who shoebat.com interviewed tried to cross the border into the United States through Sonora, Mexico. He entered Texas where he was caught by US Immigration. As he sat in the cruising Immigration bus he overheard a US border patrol officer on the phone with Mexican Immigration.

“There is more,” said the border patrol agent. “I’ll give them to you on the bridge.” The man was then transferred to Mexican immigration authorities. While in custody, he asked an immigration officer to be allowed to make a phone call to his wife. “No problem,” said the Mexican officer. “You just need to come with me and fill out a form.” He was approaching the office; the Mexican officer entered, and just right before he got inside, he was ambushed by a gang of narcos. “Where did you come from?” they asked the terrified man as he stood there confused. “Which code do you have?” This man knew nothing of a “code.” But he was horrified, horrified of the future, stricken by that consternation that fills the soul in moments of unknown, having not the slightest idea if there is any hope. They took him into an alleyway, and to his shock there was a large group of migrants, their faces terrified and full of dread. Armed narcos began dividing them and rounding them up into trucks as if they were in a concentration camp.

They drove them to a home — really a prison where migrants are kept as slaves. Each person was forced to strip off their clothes so that the gunmen could be assured that they had no weapons on them. After this humiliation, they are told to make phone calls to whoever was suppose to be responsible for them in the United States, and to tell them that they had to pay ransom money for their release. What happens when they can’t get the money? As the survivor of this cartel terror explained to us: those who cannot pay are then told to be gunmen for the criminal group, and if they refuse to do this, they are killed, their bodies never to be found because they are melted in acid. There are many migrants trapped in these houses of horror, their relatives unable to pay the money to the leaches who abuse the innocent, only to call their bloodsucking ways a “business.” Lost victims are kept locked up in these hellishly congested rooms, without any help, without any ear to hear them. They are left to the bloodlust of murderers, their dignity taken from them, their lives meaning nothing to anyone but their families who have lost any trace of them. “There are a lot of people whose families don’t have the money” the survivor told shoebat.com. “They give them a chance of two months. So they keep them there, locked up. They cannot communicate with anybody.”

There are those who do manage to escape, and when they do they flee to the first police officer they spot, begging the man in uniform for assistance, in the desperation of one who has just escaped out of hell and whose only chance of survival is a hair to latch onto. “Yes, don’t worry” the officer would say, assuring them of their safety with the badge that the common man looks to as a symbol of safety. “Get in the car, we are going to help you right now.” They would enter the police vehicle, and instead of being driven to refuge, they returned right back to a narco house where their torment, their enslavement and the extortion of their lives resumes. This is the hell that innumerable people go through. There is a common misconception that narcos only kill other narcos. While this may have been true in the past, today the innocent are seen as prey to the suffering inflicted by cruel hands. There are no boundaries, no taboos, not a single transgression that these evildoers will not indulge in their spiral towards the abyss. Vulnerable people — migrants, those who are desperate for a better life — are seen as sport for cash. The man who we interviewed was eventually smuggled by the Cartel into Texas, not to free him, but to continue the exploitation. It was in Laredo, Texas, where he was kept in a dungeon of a home, which should be a reminder to people: the horrors that are occurring across the border are happening right here in the United States.