March 2025 will forever be etched in international memory as the date when the geography of horror operating in Jalisco was uncovered. Hundreds of pairs of empty shoes, grouped together like a monument to terror, made headlines around the world from a remote property in the state.
The images turned the name of Teuchitlán and its Rancho Izaguirre into a synonym for the systematic horror perpetrated by organized crime. As 2025 drew to a close, the case, which shook Mexico, remains shrouded in secrecy, impunity, and the pain of thousands of families.
The discovery that shocked the world
On March 5, 2025, the collective of families of missing persons, Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco (Jalisco Warrior Searchers), raided Rancho Izaguirre in the municipality of Teuchitlán. What they found was the scene of a nightmare.
More than 1,300 pieces of evidence of a mass tragedy were discovered, including 154 pairs of shoes, 170 backpacks, 18 suitcases, clothing, notebooks with lists of names and nicknames, and, worst of all, human remains and charred evidence.
“It has been the most shocking discovery we have ever made… we never imagined finding such an atrocity,” declared an anonymous member of the collective.
Evidence of an Extermination System
For the searchers, the evidence was clear: the place functioned as a recruitment, training, and extermination camp for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), as they detected signs of crematoria.
They reported the existence of trenches where a brick slab was placed, the victims were burned, and then the evidence was buried underground.
“They would dig in the earth, put down a slab of stone and brick, burn whatever they had to burn, leave it open for a while, and then throw dirt on top; therefore, they buried the crematorium, which was a makeshift crematorium, but there will be more like this,” said Indira Navarro, leader of the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco (Jalisco Searchers Warriors) collective.
The Official Version of the FGR
It wasn’t until April 29 that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) confirmed that Rancho Izaguirre was a recruitment center for organized crime.
“We have now fully proven that this was a recruitment, training, and operation center for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. This is proven by confessions, testimonies, and documents; that is, the breadth of this information is absolutely undeniable,” said Alejandro Gertz Manero, former Attorney General of the Republic.
The FGR ruled out that there was any evidence to support clandestine cremations at Rancho Izaguirre, since, according to analyses by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, heating levels of 200 degrees were found, but 800 degrees are required for cremation.
“Was there a cremation site there? There is not a single piece of evidence to support that claim. Places, trenches, and holes were found where bonfires had been made,” Gertz stated.
International Impact and Historical Comparison
The magnitude of the findings and their similarity to images of historical concentration camps caused an international uproar. The case exposed a new and chilling dimension of organized crime in Mexico: the systematic abduction and elimination of people.
Searchers from various parts of the country have found clothing belonging to their missing relatives among the belongings at Rancho Izaguirre.
The harsh reality of forced recruitment
The Rancho Izaguirre case wasn’t isolated. Subsequent reports revealed an operational pattern of the CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel) in Jalisco. In early 2025, at the nearby Rancho La Vega, located amidst cornfields and sugarcane plantations, surrounded by dirt roads bordering the plots, another site largely hidden from view was discovered. Both properties are located in Teuchitlán, Jalisco.
There, 38 people were rescued after being lured with false job offers on social media to work as security guards or agave harvesters.
Isolated Properties and Young Recruits
According to experts, these criminal logistics centers are isolated in rural areas to maintain privacy for practices that include detonations and torture, but are close to cities like Guadalajara, from where they recruit their members, mostly young men.
Here we tell you about the ranch located in a small municipality of only 9,000 inhabitants called Teuchitlán.
Rancho Izaguirre is one of the most macabre discoveries of this administration.
Authorities’ Omissions
The discovery of Rancho Izaguirre revealed an even more serious failure: the omission and inefficiency of the authorities. The property had been secured by the National Guard six months earlier, in September 2024. In that operation, 10 people were arrested, two kidnapped individuals were rescued, and a body was found. However, the state and federal prosecutors didn’t properly process the scene, overlooking hundreds of pieces of evidence that were later found by the search groups.
The official investigation generated more questions than answers. The Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office ruled out the existence of crematoriums.
“Training Camp” or “Extermination Camp”
The official narrative and that of the search groups clashed head-on. While the authorities spoke of a training camp, the families insisted that it was an extermination camp.
This clash had concrete consequences: by the end of 2025, none of the remains found at the ranch had been identified or returned to the families, and the DNA processes were still “up in the air.”
MILENIO, witness to the “tour of horror”
The lack of coordination between authorities culminated in an episode described by the relatives as a cruel tour of horror. That same month of March, the Prosecutor’s Office organized an official visit to the ranch for search groups and the media.
What the families found was a property that had been “cleaned up” and “staged.” The piles of clothes, shoes, and belongings they had seen in photographs were no longer there.
Everything had been removed. They felt like they were in a “museum of tragedy,” walking through an empty space where only the traces of what might have been remained, with no explanations from the authorities.
“They brought us here like to a museum, but at least in a museum you see things or you can ask questions, and here nobody told us why we were here… It’s a mockery,” denounced Virginia Ponce, from the Madres Buscadoras de Jalisco (Searching Mothers of Jalisco) collective.
A Journey Through the Void
MILENIO was there. We walked the same path, crossed the dirt road, and entered Rancho Izaguirre in Teuchitlán, Jalisco. This place, after its discovery as a suspected training camp for organized crime, shook the country and placed the state under international scrutiny.
From the outside, the silence was already unsettling. Inside, the scene was even more disturbing. There was no trace of shoes, suitcases, notebooks, or personal belongings. It was as if the place had never been occupied.
Search groups and media outlets toured the facilities, and some described it as a stage set: a journey that felt more like a tour through a horror movie than a place where real people could have been.
Authorities conducted an operation at Rancho Izaguirre in Teuchitlán.
In trucks, families lined up under the sun, waiting their turn to enter the property where perhaps, at some point, their missing family member had been. The second group couldn’t wait any longer. They decided to proceed without permission and broke through the cordon of the state prosecutor’s office, which had asked them to wait in the vans that would transport them. They walked for about 15 minutes along a dirt road until they reached the gates of the ranch.
Access was planned for small groups and for only 20 minutes, but the organization broke down, and everyone entered without restriction. What they found was disconcerting: tidy rooms, clean bathrooms, and cordoned-off areas marking paths to observe from a distance what they had already seen up close months earlier. Again, no personal belongings. No clear sign of life.
To the right, a two-story house with a red facade. Four windows, two on the sides and two in the center, with broken panes and brown tape around them. The ground floor was empty. To go upstairs, a spiral staircase led to a room without a door, cordoned off, which was no longer accessible.
A few meters away, another much larger room, without doors or windows, covered with plaster and corrugated metal sheets. Only a tarp partially covered the front. This is where the victims allegedly slept.
In the courtyard, the kitchen, painted orange. Small, without a door. Inside, two refrigerators, one facing the wall, a gray pot, and a tub. On the floor, accumulated trash and a broom lying next to an intact appliance. A window let in some light.
Outside, wooden logs, soot stains on a wall with barbed wire, and an area with tires painted white, where training supposedly took place.
Remnants of daily life
The bathroom was divided into three small rooms. None had doors. Two were covered with black plastic bags. Inside, a blue toilet, a discarded bucket, and a bottle of air freshener. On a wooden shelf were a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, a bag of wet wipes, and two bottles of insect repellent. Light barely entered through a small square window.
Almost at the end of the property, a white room with a shed roof, isolated from the rest. A five-minute walk from the entrance, between walls and holes in the ground. Two entrances, no doors. Empty inside.
Sadness and Disappointment at the End of the Journey
After at least two hours of tears, recriminations, and long silences, the time came to leave. Some had traveled more miles than others, hoping to find a clue, a sign, anything. But they all left with the same feeling: sadness and disappointment.
What had seemed like an opportunity ended up being a tour through a museum of tragedy. MILENIO documented a place where the emptiness spoke louder than any object.
The visit, far from providing clarity, exacerbated the pain and the feeling of abandonment. Families who were searching for a clue, a familiar object, left with “sadness and disappointment,” feeling that the State had revictimized them.
Limited Judicial Progress
As of July 2025, ten people arrested in the September 2024 operation were sentenced to 141 years in prison for crimes against three specific victims. However, the victims’ groups point out that these sentences don’t encompass the full magnitude of the crimes committed at the ranch.
The judicial process against José Gregorio Lastra Hermida, alias El Lastra, the alleged main recruiter and manager of the ranch, was suspended due to an injunction, which generated outrage among the families.
International Appeal and Local Stigmatization
Meanwhile, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the Mexican State to redouble its efforts to investigate, prosecute those responsible, and identify the victims, acknowledging the inadequate official search efforts and the valuable work of the civil society groups.
For the inhabitants of Teuchitlán, the discovery was a heavy blow. The local parish priest, Jaime Gustavo Nabel, expressed the feelings of a stigmatized community.
“They say we are the Mexican Auschwitz… and no, Teuchitlán is not the murderer nor the culprit of this horror.”
Tourism to the Guachimontones archaeological site declined, and the shadow of fear spread over the sugarcane fields.
Science and Resistance in the Face of Impunity
Amidst the impunity, science and civil society organization emerge as beacons of hope. The University of Guadalajara established a collaboration with the civil society groups, offering tools such as forensic entomology, soil analysis, and geospatial technologies for the search.
Mothers like Rosalba Magaña, who has been searching for her son since 2017, embody unwavering resistance.
“Until I find him, I will not rest.” Her struggle, and that of thousands of others, is a reminder that behind the numbers and headlines lies a profound pain that demands, above all, truth and justice.
As of the end of 2025, Rancho Izaguirre remains a symbol of the horrific capacity of organized crime and the debt owed to the more than 120,000 missing persons and their families in our country.
Source: Milenio
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