Corrections to The New Yorker on the murder of Miroslava Breach

Four months have passed since this clarification to The New Yorker, which has not been corrected.

Michael Luo

In its April 17 2023, edition, Melissa del Bosque published a text about the murder of journalist Miroslava Breach. Del Bosque provides a version of the murder in this article that harms the lives of innocent people, is inaccurate, and does not do the victim justice. These facts have already been documented even before Mexican courts.

One of Melissa Del Bosque's first statements is that, in Chinipas, Chihuahua, "fentanyl and methamphetamine labs rose up, the better to satisfy American demand”. She associates this assertion with former mayor Hugo Amed Schultz, whom she refers to as "narco politician" and "narco lackey", terms that she also attributes to Breach, but she presents no evidence to support her assertions.

Several media outlets, including El Financiero in Mexico and The Washington Post in the United States, have covered the story of fentanyl production and distribution in Mexico. Both media portray it as a recent phenomenon that started in 2018, and none of these investigations mention Chinipas, Chihuahua, in the same terms that Melissa del Bosque does. Melissa del Bosque asserted without providing any proof or indications that this municipality of 8,000 people has been a "narcotics industry" for these drugs "for nearly two decades," and that Miroslava covered the route network when Schultz was the mayor. It is well known that Miroslava Breach's articles dealt with mayoral candidates who were allegedly related to drug trafficking.

On the other hand, Melissa del Bosque assures that Schultz was responsible for the murder of Miroslava, even though there is public evidence of his innocence, such as medical and psychological assessments that show that people who accused him were subjected to torture. Despite having been sentenced guilty, a new phase of defense was opened in favor of Schultz, due to my investigation published in Los Angeles Press two years ago. This work details two horrifying tortures and the fabrication of a witness, Edgar Salazar Gaxiola, whose identity was given the code Apollo in the trial records. Melissa del Bosque also accuses Salazar Gaxiola of this work based on fake evidence produced by the Mexican government's justice institutions.

Melissa del Bosque focuses most of her accusations on just two interviewees: Javier Corral and Patricia Mayorga. Hugo Amed Schultz's testimony was obtained by the first, a former governor of Chihuahua, through coercion, and was later changed by the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression. The prosecutor's agents threatened to jail his son for making up kidnapping charges.

The second person Melissa del Bosque spoke with was a reporter in Chihuahua for the Mexican magazine Proceso, who was denounced for perjury in the Chihuahua court, when she was incorporated to Mexican witness protection system.

The April 2005 murder of journalist Alfredo Jiménez Mota in the state of Sonora is another case in which Melissa del Bosque lied. Additionally, I investigated this matter and reported my findings in the Los Angeles Press. The group known as 'Los Numeros' or 'Los Güeritos', who operated under the protection of the then mayor of Cajeme, Ricardo Bours Castelo, the brother of the governor of Sonora, José Eduardo Bours Castelo, is implicated in the murder, according to the evidence and eyewitnesses. The organization has been involved in drug trafficking to Arizona since the 1990s, according to records on the internet.

The Attorney General's Office is still looking into the deaths of the two journalists Melissa del Bosque mentioned in her text, and the false culprits continue to fight for their freedom. Even the individuals mentioned by Del Bosque in the Jiménez Mota case have spent more than 12 years in prison without a sentence.

Given your editorial responsibilities at the esteemed publication The New Yorker, I believe it is necessary as an investigative journalist to notify you.

Regards,

Guadalupe Lizarraga

English Edition

The New Yorker fables the case of Miroslava Breach with fabricated testimonies by FEADLE