“HEARST” and “Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Marco Antonio Flores, the singer-turned-politician who as soon as performed non-public gigs for Zetas cartel determine El Lazca, introduced that he can be closing his lodge in Zacatecas as a result of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) has been threatening his staff.
Warning: Some graphic photographs beneath this level.
Marco & Banda Jerez
Within the late Nineteen Eighties, an area music instructor named Perfecto Flores created a band within the city of Jerez, Zacatecas, which was made up of his music college students. Afterward his son, a singer named Marco Antonio Flores, started performing with the group. In 2000, the band turned extra formalized and took on the identify “La No. 1 Banda Jerez with Marco A. Flores”, usually shortened to simply “Banda Jerez”.
Later that 12 months, the group launched their first album, titled “Nomás Por Ti Me Emborracho”, produced by Sony Music. One of many album’s songs referred to as “La Cabrona” proved to be successful and have become widespread in each Mexico and america.
Banda Jerez went on to develop into a profitable group, releasing a lot of albums between 2004 – 2014. The group primarily targeted on re-working conventional ranchera songs which give attention to generic themes of affection and heartache. They had been thought-about to be a clear band, which was not significantly recognized for singing narco corridos.
Narco corridos are songs which reward the prison endeavors of a sure cartel determine, that are paid for by the cartel determine themselves. Banda Jerez did, nevertheless, have a number of songs of their discography which wax rhapsodic concerning the generic narco life-style, similar to El Comboy and El Zacatecano.
The band started taking a lot of high-profile gigs from cartel figures in 2012. In response to newspaper El Universal, on February 2, 2012, the group performed a live performance in Pachuca, Hidalgo, for a Los Zetas chief named Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, alias “El Lazca”. The live performance celebrated a church which Lazca constructed within the space.
El Universal wrote that the group sang “a corrido devoted to Lazcano […] The lyrics point out the dispute between Los Zetas and different cartels. The assist and backing that Lazcano provides Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, Z-40, in addition to the respect he has for Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, El Mamito.”
On April 22, 2012, the band was allegedly paid to carry out a non-public live performance for Lazca once more, this time in honor of his girlfriend’s birthday, in response to newspaper Orlando Sentinel. The live performance was held in Monclova, Coahuila.
At about 1:30 am, federal legislation enforcement raided the live performance in an try to arrest Lazca, however the Zetas determine managed to slide away. The members of Banda Jerez had been escorted to the federal Lawyer Common’s Workplace and interrogated about who was on the social gathering and who employed them to carry out.
The band’s legal professional, Enrique Frausto, said that his shoppers didn’t have any direct contact with the individuals who employed them for concert events. He emphasised that the band was not arrested by federal authorities and was merely requested about how many individuals attended the occasion and who was on the gig.
In June 2012, Banda Jerez launched the music El Comandante 50, a narco-corrido which glorifies a Zetas chief named Iván Velázquez Caballero, alias “El Talibán”, who operates within the group’s house state of Zacatecas.
The Kidnapping
The month after their music praising Zetas’ El Talibán was launched, Banda Jerez’s lead singer Marco Flores was kidnapped, allegedly by members of the rival cartel group the Gulf Cartel.
Marco Flores was kidnapped whereas touring to his ranch in Jerez, Zacatecas, and held in captivity for a month whereas his kidnappers negotiated a ransom worth together with his household. Ultimately, his household was stated to have paid $5 million pesos for his secure launch. (Equal to $8,145,258 pesos in 2023, or $441,680 USD in 2023.)
Marco Antonio was later interviewed concerning the kidnapping, as seen within the video above. He stated as follows, as translated by Sol Prendido:
Male Reporter: After dwelling probably the most terrifying month of his life after being kidnapped by an armed prison cell close to his ranch in Zacatecas, Marco Antonio Flores, lead singer of the musical group Banda Jerez, shares the main points of the ordeal.
Marco Flores: It was a gaggle of armed males in a truck with police lights. They stopped us, they stopped me, I used to be handcuffed, blinded, they usually took me away. There have been insults, there have been blows, there was every little thing the primary day. Typically we ate little or no, a tortilla or one thing day by day.
Male Reporter: Throughout his days in captivity Marcó was threatened with loss of life numerous instances. However he tried to have a peaceable relationship together with his guards and even sang to them.
Reporter #2: At any time did they speak about killing you?
Marco Flores: Each day, fairly often. I bear in mind telling one of many guys who was guarding me that if the order was as they are saying kill them. Properly, I wished it to be over fast. Every now and then I might sing a music or one thing in order that every little thing felt a bit smoother there.
Male Reporter: As soon as free the singer obtained medical consideration and selected to not report it.
Marco Flores: A number of days in the past they launched me and I used to be hospitalized. I used to be a bit relieved due to the medication, due to every little thing, I had infections, I had every little thing. I do not need any issues. I do not know who they’re.
Male Reporter: Now he’s making an attempt to get pleasure from his household extra whereas he decides the place he’ll reside, america being a risk.
Marco Flores: In on a regular basis I’ve been working, I’ve by no means actually been there with them. I am all the time working. Attempting to avoid wasting cash, save one thing for the children, for his or her college. There’s an actual risk of me shifting to america.
Feminine Reporter: What can be left so that you can make this choice?
Marco Flores: I might need to see what my spouse needs.
The Live performance Beat Down
Marco Flores ended up not shifting to the US and he continued to guide the group. Years later, on September 6, 2015, Banda Jerez had been invited to carry out a set at a horse race, within the US, at Kersey, Colorado.
Throughout their efficiency Marco ran off the stage, jumped a fence, and tried to beat a person together with his microphone stand. His bandmates, their safety staff, and others tried to interrupt the combat aside and maintain Marco again. Video of this incident could be seen beneath.
Marco later defined that the person he attacked was one of many cartel figures who kidnapped him. Marco says he acknowledged the kidnapper within the crowd and in some unspecified time in the future the person “provoked him from beneath the stage.”
It is fascinating to notice that an article famous that “the particular person the singer hit additionally had quite a lot of safety with him.” This appears to suggest that the kidnapper Marco tried to combat was necessary sufficient to have his personal safety staff. It’s also fascinating to notice that this safety staff was dropped at a public occasion within the US.
His Time as a Politician
In 2016, Marco Antonio made his first foray into politics, operating for governor for the Encuentro Social political social gathering, in a race which he finally misplaced.
In 2018, he ran to be a consultant for Zacatecas in federal Congress, for the political social gathering coalition PT-Morena-PES, which he additionally misplaced.
Then in 2021, he ran for a similar place and gained the election, being a congressman representing Zacatecas.
He didn’t stop music nevertheless – one thing which acquired him roundly criticized in April 2022 when he skipped out on a congressional dialogue {of electrical} reform on account of two Banda Jerez concert events he performed within the US.
His Enterprise Enterprise and the Growing Violence
In January 2019, earlier than he gained his seat in Congress, Marco Flores tried to open a lodge/reward store in Jerez, Zacatecas, which was referred to as La Cabrona, named after one among Banda Jerez’s widespread songs.
The lodge was positioned inside a historic mansion in a central a part of downtown Jerez. The singer had the mansion reworked and renovated right into a lodge, with all of the work accomplished by January 2019.
Marco Flores struggled to open it, nevertheless, as a result of the federal electrical energy fee insisted his lodge wanted a $450,000 high-consumption electrical substation, with a $150,000 set up price. Marco spoke out towards this, saying the electrical energy fee was extorting him, in a means, as a result of his lodge was not needing electrical energy at a high-consumption fee.
After negotiation forwards and backwards between the fee and the lodge, an settlement was reached and La Cabrona lodge/reward store was formally opened in April 2019.
The reward store part of the lodge offered merchandise for the band, in addition to bottles from Marco Flores’ alcohol model. The lodge featured rooms named after widespread songs from Banda Jerez.
Beneath is a video released in 2022 by La Cabrona Hotel, which reveals the lodge and its location inside the downtown space of Jerez.
In 2020, an exodus started. Because the territorial warfare between Sinaloa Cartel – Mayo and the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) heated up, residents in sure areas of Zacatecas started to depart their houses, touring to different areas to quickly escape the full-out battles going down. Jerez is a city which was hit significantly exhausting and plenty of locals fled the realm.
In February 2022, Marco Flores spoke out at a congressional event concerning the violence which was plaguing Zacatecas. He stated “If the federal authorities does not take heed to us, I personally am going to summon the individuals to take up arms up there, it’s not honest.”
Marco was joined by a spokesman for Jerez residents who had been compelled to flee their houses, who requested anonymity for worry of retribution, spoke up about how they had been nonetheless being billed by the federal electrical energy fee for electrical energy to the homes that that they had left years in the past.
Humberto Salazar, mayor of Jerez, urged the congressmen to take heed to the voice of a dying individuals and requested for concrete motion to assist 1000’s of households who reside with out having the ability to return to their houses, saying “They can not work, as a result of unsafe circumstances we’re experiencing. Within the provinces they’re struggling. Right here in Jerez they’re struggling.”
“I wish to ask you, with all due respect -and imagine me, I do know that as a surgeon, if I didn’t repair the issue, my affected person would die – that is why I’m so positive that now we have to be decisive, as a result of Jerez is dying as a result of lack of security.”
Later that 12 months, Marco Flores introduced that his driver had been killed in a random assault of violence which killed 4 others.
“A bunch of hitmen arrived on the bar in Fresnillo and opened hearth on all those that had been there, with out distinction- as if it had been an act of terrorism towards the harmless inhabitants, the place my driver was. He was an harmless particular person.”
La Cabrona Lodge Closing
On Tuesday, March 21, 2023, Marco posted an announcement to his Fb, proven beneath.
It reads, as follows:
Hiya my individuals, on this event want to let you know that we’re closing the doorways of the lodge La Cabrona as a result of my staff had been threatened by individuals who declare to be from the Jalisco cartel.
The fellows who’re threatening them are well-known on the town. I wish to let individuals, basically, know to be very cautious in coming to Zacatecas, don’t belief anybody and in the event you can keep away from [visiting], that is likely to be higher.
Marco Flores later commented that he had beforehand privately requested for assist from authorities however they appeared to all the time “depart him at nighttime” so he hoped going public would assist them to take heed to him.
“I hope that now they’ll take heed to me […] they should cease the wave of crime and insecurity that we reside in Zacatecas”.
Banda Jerez Sources: El Universal, Orlando Sentinel, Scanner Sound, La Silla Rota Video, TodoPorMexico, El Diario, El Siglo
The Kidnapping: Archived Regional Mex Article 1, Article 2
Live performance Beatdown Sources: El Siglo Coahuila, Soy Grupero, La Opinion, POBLANOPOWER
His Time as a Politician Sources: Dallas News Article 1, Article 2, Milenio
His Enterprise Enterprise & Announcement Sources: The Hotel’s Facebook Page, Milenio, Borderland Beat Archive
Lodge Closing Down Sources: Marco Flores Facebook Announcement, His Follow Up Post, Informador, Latin US Article 1, Article 2, SDP Noticias, Sopitas, Hidrocalido Digital, El Financiero
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