Mexican soldiers and Fedral Police, in joint operation, arrested on Thursday “El Pozolero del Teo” or “Teo’s Stew Maker” along with Héctor Manuel Valenzuela Lobos, 45, who is said to be Teo’s personal chef, Fernando López Alarcón, 49, assistant chef and one unidentified minor child within a coastal tourist compound 80 kilometers from the American border in Ensenada Northern Baja California.
Santiago Meza Flores, 45, confessed to dissolving, over 300 bodies of enemies and debtors of Teodoro Garcia Simental, a former lieutenant of the Tijuana Arellano Felix drug cartel.
He, himself, reportedly created his nickname “El Pozolero de Teo” from the word Pozole, a regional Mexican Stew, which includes different types of meat and takes as long as a day of boiling to fully cook.
I did not kill them, they were already dead when they came to me; I only disposed of the bodies. They bring me the bodies I put them in drums with acid, whatever was leftover after 24 hours in acid, I buried with the others in a nearby pit. I didn’t feel anything. I was paid $600 U.S. dollars per week to work, just like any other job. May they forgive me – Santiago Meza Flores
Police have previously recovered human remains burned with acid in and around the city. A high-ranking army officer said he believed Meza was telling the truth.
Teodoro Garcia Simental is Baja California’s most well known, but unidentifiable drug lords. He is perhaps, Mexico’s most evil man; without a face.
He is said to love the ladies, fast horses, good food and dissolving enemies in lye.
Garcia, who is said to be from Sinaloa, grew up in Tijuana and started out in the Arellano Felix organization as a trusted enforcer, probably in the 1990s, and grew powerful as a lieutenant who helped transform kidnapping into a multimillion-dollar industry.
This year, the head of the cartel, Fernando Sanchez Arellano, a nephew of the founding brothers, tried unsuccessfully to halt the abductions of doctors, businessmen and politically influential figures. Sanchez Arellano apparently was worried that the crime wave, increased by Garcia, was hampering the organization’s drug-trafficking business, according to both U.S. and Mexican authorities.
In April, the renegade, Garcia, and the cartel leader, Sanchez Arellano, split in bloody way; their gangs shot it out on an expressway in eastern Tijuana, leaving 15 dead. Garcia fled to Sinaloa but returned in September to launch all-out war. He is believed to be allied with the Sinaloa cartel, which is led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Relatives of more than 100 missing people have asked authorities for permission to meet face-to-face with Meza Flores to show him photos in hopes of receiving answers and possible closure as to the wherabouts of their missing loved ones.
Meza Flores has not been charged. Investigators have not identified any of Meza’s alleged victims or provided evidence to back up his over 300 victims claim.
What will be interesting to see is exactly how Meza Flores will be convicted for his body disposing services. Unless someone, somehow can prove he killed at least one of his victims, I fear his arrest will only be great press for morbid readers and little to no gain in our country’s war against the drug trafficking terrorists who hold our nation captive.
