A group of border state police officers in Mexico will spend 50 years in prison for their role in the mass killing and incineration of 19 people who were trying to reach the Texas border.

On Tuesday night, a state judge in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas sentenced 11 out of 12 officers to 50 years in prison for the charges of murder, abuse of authority, and crimes against public administration. The group’s coordinator, Mayra Elizabeth Vazquez, also had an additional charge of making false statements. However, her sentence was the same as the others.

In addition to Vazquez, the other officers who received a 50-year sentence included Commander Horacio Rocha Nambo, Hector Javier Alfaro Acuña, Horacio Quiroz Sánchez, William Figueroa Medellin, Jorge Echeverria Barcenas, Christian Eduardo González Garcìa, Carlos Rodriguez Rodriguez,  Jorge Castillo Miranda, Jose Luis López Morales, and Edgar Manuel Antonio.

The 12th officer in the group, Ismael Vazquez, only received a 19-year sentence for the charges of abuse of authority and crimes against public administration. Vazquez cooperated with authorities and testified against the other 11 officers in his group.

As Breitbart Texas reported, in September, Tamaulipas State Judge Patricio Lugo Jaramillo convicted the 12 officers for their role in the January 22, 2022 massacre near Camargo, Tamaulipas. On that day, the officers mistook a convoy of SUVs with migrants for a group of cartel gunmen and began shooting. Once they realized that the people in the vehicles were not gunmen but in fact 17 migrants and two human smugglers, the officers set fire to the bodies and the vehicles to cover up the mass killing. At the time, the police officers tried to claim that the crime scene was the result of a shootout between rival cartels.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     

“Francisco Morales” from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles contributed to this report.