"Mexico City Noir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taibo II Paco Ignacio, Parra Eduardo Antonio, Fernández Bernardo, Haghenbeck F....)

III

Toward the end of the ’90s, a series of rapes that followed a certain pattern took place in the southern part of the city: a group of armed men would assault a young couple. First the robbery, then the rape. They usually stuffed the boyfriend in the trunk of a car. All the rapes were followed by death threats. Terror was practiced without reason-apparently, just to see what it felt like to wield the power of death itself. In a few cases, things got out of hand: a girl was strangled to death, an aggressive boyfriend was shot, another one asphyxiated in the trunk.

The majority of the rapes weren’t reported. That was traditional. But in one case, the victim was the daughter of an important political operative. There was a police investigation. Other young victims emerged and recognized their assailants in a police photo album.

In a photo album of known delinquents? No. It contained pictures of political operatives. The gang of rapists consisted mostly of members of Assistant Prosecutor Javier Coello Trejo’s bodyguard corps; he was deputy to the attorney general of the republic in charge of antidrug operations. The guys had too much free time sitting in parked cars, hanging out by building entrances, lounging at the homes of politicians. They had to pass the hours somehow…

Several of the killer rapists went to trial, others remained free. The assistant prosecutor was let go from his post and transferred to the Office of the Federal Prosecutor for the Consumer. There he could go after those who upped the price too much on video cassettes.