Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A6
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Marc Lacey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tijuana
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)

MEXICAN MAN ADMITS USING ACID ON BODIES, ARMY SAYS

MEXICO CITY -- Pozole is a popular Mexican stew that can feature 
pork, hominy and an array of vegetables and seasonings. But the name 
of the delicacy has taken on a sinister new meaning: Mexican 
authorities have detained a man linked to hundreds of deaths in the 
drug war who is being called the Pozole Maker.

The man, Santiago Meza Lopez, known as "el Pozolero" in the Mexican 
news media, has confessed to dissolving the remains of 300 people in 
acid while working for a top drug trafficker, the Mexican Army said 
Friday. Dissolving bodies is gaining increasing popularity in the 
internecine killings between rival traffickers that is playing out 
here, and the practice has become known as making pozole (pronounced 
poh-ZOH-leh).

Mr. Meza, 45, confessed to receiving $600 a week to dispose of bodies 
for Teodoro Garcia Simental, a drug kingpin who broke with the 
Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel and is said to be at war with 
Fernando Sanchez Arellano, his former boss, the authorities said.

Soldiers and police officers paraded Mr. Meza before reporters on 
Friday in a remote area on the outskirts of Tijuana, where he was 
accused of dumping bodies into pits over the last decade, pouring 
acid on them and letting them dissolve underground.

Mr. Meza admitted as much as the authorities surrounded him and 
ordered him to speak up to the press. "I ask for forgiveness from the 
families of these people," he said, according to the newspaper Reforma.

In September, the police found three barrels of acid containing human 
remains outside a seafood restaurant with a note attached that said, 
"We're going to make pozole" of those who work with the engineer, a 
reference to Mr. Sanchez Arellano's nickname.

The authorities suspect that Mr. Garcia is behind those killings and 
others in which mutilated bodies have turned up on Tijuana's streets. 
The military nearly arrested Mr. Garcia on Thursday, officials said. 
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