MEXICAN AUTHORITIES HAVE ARRESTED a 14-year-old boy who allegedly helped a drug gang behead four people, the AP reports.
The teen was arrested on Thursday along with his 19-year-old sister at an airport south of Mexico city as the pair attempted to leave the country.
The US-born teenager, known as “El Ponchis” (“the cloak”), claimed he participated in four executions when drugged and threatened that he would be killed if he didn’t take part, according to Al Jazeera.
The AP reports that the youth told reporters that he had been kidnapped when he was 11 years old, and was forced to work for a drug cartel called the Cartel of the South Pacific.
His sister claimed to be the girlfriend of the cartel’s leader and said her brother had introduced them. She said she and her brother were aiming to cross the border at Tijuana to stay with their stepmother in San Diego.
She said she was one of a group which helps dispose of the bodies of people killed by the cartel.
The Wall Street Journal reports that younger youths and children are becoming involved in drug crime in Mexico. Latin Amercia expert at the University of Miami told the WSJ that “Mexico has fallen into a spiral that will scar a whole generation”.
Recently, a video emerged online which showed youths as young as 12 posing beside their victims in Mexico.
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