Police detain alleged mastermind of mass killing of 12 taken from Mexico City bar

MEXICO CITY – Mexico City authorities have detained the alleged mastermind behind the kidnapping of 12 young people who were later found dead.

Prosecutors in Mexico City said Thursday in a statement that witnesses told investigators Joel Javier Rodriguez Fuentes planned and participated in the abduction last year.

The group vanished from an after-hours bar a block from the leafy Reforma Avenue. Their bodies were found months later in a clandestine grave in neighboring Mexico state.

The mass kidnapping resonated across the city of 9 million people because many had come to believe it was an oasis from violence elsewhere in the country.

Authorities said the group was targeted as revenge for the killing of a drug dealer in the capital.