La Vega Case: ‘Recruiters’ From the Other Ranch in Teuchitlán Seek Their Freedom

That day at 6:00 p.m., the military and federal security forces arrived at La Vega, a ranch located in a small municipality of only 9,000 inhabitants called Teuchitlán.

They jumped the makeshift barbed-wire fences and began searching for clues related to the anonymous report they had received a few hours earlier.

According to a National Guard report, it looked like a small farming camp. It was surrounded by orchards, and the only indication that people were there was a gray brick shed with a tin roof.

What did they find in La Vega?

Then the officers saw it: a few meters from the makeshift structure, a man was walking wearing a tactical vest—similar to one used by the military—with a magazine sticking out of it. He also had a leg holster on which he carried two more magazines. Suddenly, the man tensed.

“They’ve found us, they’ve found us!” he managed to shout when he noticed the presence of the security forces.

The man ran from the surrounding grasslands into the warehouse, and that’s when soldiers and police officers jumped on him. They shouted at him to stop, but he wanted to get to the door to warn those inside that they were “compromised”. 

It was January 29, 2025. That winter afternoon, security forces found 1,578 rounds of ammunition and 38 people crammed into the warehouse. They claimed they belonged to a training camp for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

What would later be learned is that at least 36 of them had been recruited under false pretenses and forced to work for the cartel. Only two were identified as recruiters. To date, the identities of those arrested are being withheld.

Here, we tell you about the ranch located in a small municipality of only 9,000 inhabitants called Teuchitlán.

The La Vega recruiters want to leave

MILENIO had access to documents from two lawsuits filed by the two alleged CJNG recruiters, which reveal details of the day the Mexican government discovered the La Vega training ranch in Teuchitlán.

It was the second of two such sinister locations. A few weeks later, search groups would discover another one 7 kilometers away, a recruitment center where crematoriums, bone remains, and graves were found: the Izaguirre Ranch.

Rancho Izaguirre: Federally seized on September 18, 2024, and officially seized by the Attorney General’s Office on March 25, 2025.

Rancho La Vega: Discovered on January 29, 2025.

Rancho Izaguirre: On March 5, 2025, collectives discovered hundreds of items of clothing and human remains, which no authorities had located the first time.

The two injunctions were filed by the men accused of recruiting young men, some of them very young, luring them with promises of salaries ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 pesos a week, and then deceiving them to take them to Teuchitlán, where they kept them enslaved.

Today, both men are seeking to have their detention declared illegal, the revocation of the order linking them to the case, and the withdrawal of the precautionary measure of pretrial detention that currently keeps them in the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco.

Both men claim to have been tortured during their arrest. They have asked the federal court to recognize this human rights violation and, consequently, order the reinstatement of the proceedings or the annulment of the evidence obtained during their detention.

This is the Izaguirre Ranch

How was the ranch discovered?

On January 30 of this year, the security cabinet learned through a press release of around twenty arrests and operations across the country.

The Jalisco section stated that in Teuchitlán, members of the Mexican Army, the National Guard, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) had arrested 37 people (this information was later corrected).

It was stated that a training camp linked to a criminal group had been seized, where magazines, four radio communication devices, tactical equipment, and chemical precursors were found.

The place was surrounded by dry grasslands and was a perfect rectangle divided into three areas: the shed, very similar to a warehouse, a sort of central courtyard, and on the other side, a sandy earth space surrounded by white sacks that formed a low wall.

The locality was about 400 meters of training camp. The place was filled with jugs.

Photographs from that day show a line of men who were detained, their faces covered with their own old and torn T-shirts. The image is heartbreaking: men with their heads covered in a single file, hugging each other from behind. At that moment, they were arrested and transferred to the Puente Grande prison.

However, federal investigations would quickly reveal a dark reality. On February 6, a judge determined that 36 of the 38 detainees were victims of forced recruitment through false job advertisements.

On February 7, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus finally spoke out, confirming the story that 36 people had been released after it was established that they were indeed victims.

“They were abducted at this recruitment center in Teuchitlán, but they have since been released, and their statements are simply being taken to determine how they were recruited,” said the state governor.

That day, he said that these individuals had been summoned to the Zapopan bus station. There, they were picked up and taken to La Vega, in Teuchitlán, 75 kilometers from the bus terminal. Two people were reportedly arrested for their alleged involvement with the CJNG.

Here, we tell you about the ranch located in a small municipality of only 9,000 inhabitants called Teuchitlán.

The Discoveries and the Injunctions

Authorities have protected the names of the two recruiters from La Vega; however, two injunctions filed in the Third District Court for Criminal Matters in the State of Jalisco reveal details of the arrests.

That day, five military-green chest rigs used for storing magazines were found, containing 245 7.62 x 39 mm cartridges; 54 7.62 x 51 mm cartridges; and 30 .45″ cartridges; 420 9 mm cartridges; 304 .40″ cartridges; and 5,555 5.56 x 45 mm cartridges.

Scattered on the floor to one side were 11 magazines for 5.56 x 45 mm cartridges; An empty 7.62 x 39 mm cartridge magazine; six beige vests, one green; two holsters; one leg holster; four radios; one electrical outlet; and a vehicle.

They also revealed that on one of the walls of the ranch were what appeared to be silhouettes for target practice, one of the clues that would reveal it was a training camp for future members of the CJNG.

One of the detainees, whose name hasn’t been revealed, filed an injunction on February 27, 2024, seeking to overturn the entire case against him.

In an injunction filed before a federal judge, he requests that his detention be declared illegal, that the court order issued days later be annulled, and that the pretrial detention that keeps him in Puente Grande prison in Jalisco be lifted.

He argues that he was tortured during the operation: “He was hit on the head, temples, and testicles with the barrel of the gun the soldier was carrying. Later, they removed his sneakers and socks, making him raise the soles of his feet, and began beating him with a stiff rope, in addition to kicking him in the testicles.”

In his testimony, he says he was threatened with death and tortured, telling him that “they would cut him into little pieces if he didn’t talk…”

In the injunction, his defense claims that the detention was illegal because it was arbitrary and therefore violated his human rights, especially due to the unjustified use of force by the captors.

During this legal process, the defense presented to the judge the existence of a medical report that, it claimed, evidenced the injuries treated by the municipal medical services of the Guadalajara government, as well as medical opinions on his physical integrity issued by forensic medical experts from the Attorney General’s Office.

“He suffered various injuries, having been the victim of repeated and continuous physical, verbal, and psychological abuse by members of the Mexican Army, acts that, in the opinion of the petitioner for guarantees, are classified as torture,” said the defense.

Meanwhile, in the second injunction, also filed before the Third District Criminal Court in the state of Jalisco on March 5 of this year, one of the detainees also claimed to have been a victim of torture.

According to his version, he suffered various injuries that required hospitalization for more than 10 days, as well as surgery due to the severity of his condition.

Victims recount their experience at the criminal training camp in the municipality of Teuchitlán

Silent Witness: The Dark Side of Recruitment at Rancho Izaguirre

What did the judge say about the case?

In the case of the first petition for legal protection filed by one of the detainees on February 27, a judge ruled until June 26 that the issue of human rights violations resulting from torture was irrelevant at that stage of the proceedings, since the complainant had not committed any acts of torture, confessed, or made any other act of self-incrimination motivated by the violence he claims was inflicted on him.

“Based on the conclusions made, the corresponding investigation is not warranted,” the judge said, and made the same ruling in the case of the second detainee. The same judge made the exact same determination at the end of June of this year.

But the defendants haven’t given up. On July 15, from the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area Penitentiary Complex, their defense filed a motion for review to challenge the unfavorable ruling in their trial.

In that document, he requested that a court overturn the previous ruling and highlighted the wrongs he believed the judge had committed by validating his detention and keeping him in custody.

More than a month after that, the process remains open to determine whether the complaint filed by the alleged recruiters of one of the criminal ranches in the municipality of Teuchitlán is admissible.

Sources: Milenio, Cartel Insider