Nearly 12 years after 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College Raúl Isidro Burgos in Iguala, Guerrero, disappeared, documents confirmed that one of the missing students was actually an undercover military informant posing as a classmate.
Alejandro Encinas, Mexico's former undersecretary for human rights and the country's representative to the Organization of American States, shared official documents showing that soldier Julio César López Patolzin had been operating undercover as a student. According to the records, he formally notified his superiors during the early hours of Sept. 26, 2014, that the students had left for Iguala aboard several buses.
The documents corroborate the version shared by Mexico's Interior Ministry, who said López Patolzin had spent months attending student assemblies, meetings and demonstrations while posing as a student. The documents shared by Encinas also show that he submitted his final report to his commanding officer on the morning of Sept. 26, indicating that both government authorities and the military were aware of the students' movements in Iguala.
As highlighted by Animal Político, the files shared by Encinas show that the Mexican military remained in constant contact with López Patolzin through phone calls and text messages. The documents also indicate that the Defense Ministry continued making regular salary payments to his father for several days after his disappearance.
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— Alejandro Encinas (@A_Encinas_R) July 12, 2026
Ayuda para la memoria:
El soldado López Patolzin estaba adscrito como Órgano de Búsqueda de Información (OBI), “con fachada de alumno”, en la Escuela Normal Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa, como acreditan documentos oficiales.
Abro hilo:#Ayotzinapa pic.twitter.com/Cn82XCYlfv
The Ayotzinapa case
The disappearance of the 43 students from Guerrero has remained under intense public and media scrutiny for more than a decade.
As noted by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, between 80 and 100 students were traveling to Mexico City to take part in the annual march commemorating the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. On the night of Sept. 26, the buses carrying the students were intercepted by municipal police officers in Iguala, who blocked their path.
When the students got off the buses to move the patrol vehicles, officers opened fire. According to the National Human Rights Commission, three students and three bystanders were killed during the attack, while another group of students was detained, forced into pickup trucks and subsequently disappeared.
In the early hours of Sept. 27, another group of students making their way back to Ayotzinapa was intercepted by police, who illegally detained several of them before forcing them into vehicles and making them disappear as well.
Mexican officials argue that the disappearances were carried out with the help of the Guerreros Unidos cartel. Last June, authorities arrested Juan Miguel "N," also known as "El Pajarraco," an alleged member of Carteles Unidos who reportedly told the National Human Rights Commission while in custody that he had been unable to sleep since the night the students disappeared.
"Stop looking for them because they all died after being incinerated at the Cocula dump," he told the commission at the time, as reported by Milenio.
According to InSight Crime, Guerreros Unidos is a splinter group of the Beltrán Leyva Organization and operates primarily in central Mexico. The group is known for extortion, kidnapping, and trafficking heroin into the United States.
