14-year-old boy last seen in kidnapping video among 11 boys found dead in southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Among the many horrific videos posted online amid Mexican drug cartel violence, few were as deeply shocking as that of a 14-year-old boy kidnapped along with about a dozen family members in the south of the country in late October.

In the video posted by his captors, the skinny, shoeless boy is seen sitting against a tree with his hands tied and saying quietly that he works for a rival drug gang. The boy was obviously speaking under duress, his schoolboy face hesitant and cautious.

Authorities confirmed Friday that 14-year-old Ángel Barrera Millán was one of four minors and seven adults whose dismembered bodies were found in the back of a pickup truck on the side of the road this week.

The deaths underscore the brazen power of local drug cartels and the government's powerlessness in the area around Chilpancingo – the capital of Guerrero state, where the resort town of Acapulco is located – and the nearby municipality of Chilapa.

The boy's family was traveling to Chilapa on October 21 to sell their stash of plastic household items – buckets, dishes and other containers – at an open-air market when they were attacked by the Ardillos, a local cartel that controls Chilapa. were kidnapped fighting the rival Tlacos for control of Chilpancingo.

“The state authorities have enabled these organized crime groups to gain entrenched control over these areas,” an activist with human rights group Tlachinollan said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “This area is completely controlled by the Ardillos,” including some areas he said officials were reluctant to enter.

The video posted online suggests that the family may have originally been kidnapped because one of its members took a cell phone photo of the wrong person in town.

It is not clear what happened to the other two members of the group – 13 disappeared and 11 bodies were found, including three women and another boy who was 13 years old.

The family's tragedy did not end with the eleven dead. On October 27, four relatives went looking for the missing family and were themselves kidnapped. Nothing has been heard from them since.

Until November 6, when the bodies were found, state authorities had claimed they were searching far and wide for a missing person case involving 17 people, all relatives.

Prosecutors released photos of police, soldiers, vehicles and drones flying over dirt roads and into undergrowth. The Army summoned helicopters and offered a reward of about $50,000 for information about the missing people, but could not find them.

Apparently the cartel killed them in Chilpancingo, the state capital of 300,000 people. Their bodies were left on the main boulevard through the city, which also serves as the main north-south highway to Acapulco.

The family's death was not the first gruesome murder by the cartel.

In early October, the city's mayor was killed and beheaded, just a week after taking office. Alejandro Arcos took office on October 1 in Chilpancingo. A week later, his body was found in a pickup truck with his head on the roof of the vehicle.

In 2023, another gang hijacked a government armored car, blocked a major road and took police officers hostage to secure the release of arrested suspects.

The human rights activist explained that the Ardillos control a large part of the state's mountains, where they call mandatory community meetings and force local residents to cooperate with the gang.

Mexican cartels often dump the bodies of their hostages — or release grisly videos of torture, interrogation and beheadings of their victims — to intimidate their rivals and authorities.