One day after three teenagers were found dead in a clandestine grave on a Tecate hillside, Mayor Román Cota Muñoz refused to cancel the city’s public World Cup viewing party. He sat in the front row at Parque Miguel Hidalgo on June 11, watched Mexico beat South Africa, and posted celebratory photos to Facebook. Grieving families responded by plastering the park’s iconic Tecate tourist sign with photos of the missing and the dead.
The three victims, Edgar Jovani (16), Jeremy (15), and Brian Samuel (16), had been missing since April 20. They reportedly vanished after accepting a job offer, a recruitment tactic that search collectives across Baja California have linked to organized crime. Their bodies were recovered June 10 from a hillside in the Bicentenario subdivision, near the Colonia Lomas de Santa Anita area along the Mexicali-Tijuana highway.
Three Teens Disappeared After a False Job Offer on April 20
The pattern is familiar in Baja California’s border towns. Young people receive offers for easy, well-paid work through social media or word of mouth. The jobs do not exist. In Tecate, a city of roughly 110,000 people about 35 miles east of Tijuana, search collectives have documented a growing number of disappearances following this script. Baja California ranks among Mexico’s top states for clandestine grave discoveries. The state’s FGE (state attorney general’s office) has handled dozens of such cases in border municipalities over the past several years.
Tecate’s small size makes the disappearances harder to ignore. The city is popular with day-trippers from San Diego, wine tourists visiting the Valle de Guadalupe corridor, and a small but steady expat community drawn by lower costs and a quieter pace than Tijuana or Rosarito. The Bicentenario subdivision where the grave was found sits just off one of the region’s main arterial highways, not in a remote backcountry area.
The three boys had been missing for 52 days before their bodies were located. During that time, their families organized searches and pressed local authorities for help. Citizen search collectives, groups of volunteers who comb terrain looking for clandestine graves because official resources are thin, played a role in the discovery. These collectives have become a defining feature of civic life across Baja California, filling gaps that municipal and state agencies leave open.
Cota Deleted Critical Comments and Deflected to State Prosecutors
At his weekly press conference on June 11, hours before the World Cup screening, reporters asked Cota about public demands to cancel the event. Citizens had circulated messages saying “Tecate is in mourning” and “There is nothing to celebrate.” The Morena party mayor responded: “We are in total respect of their opinion.” He called the discovery tragic, especially “as a father,” and said the city would follow the FGE’s investigation.
He offered no concrete public safety measures, no plan to address the false-job-offer pipeline, and no acknowledgment that the city government bore any responsibility for prevention. His framing placed the entire matter in the hands of the state prosecutor’s office, a common deflection by municipal leaders in Baja California when confronted with cartel-related violence.
Then Cota went to the park. His official Facebook page posted images of the crowd watching the match, captioned with: “Today we lived a great family celebration with the World Cup at 100% in Parque Miguel Hidalgo. These activities strengthen the social fabric, promote togetherness, and unite us as a community.” The hashtag #TecateAl100 accompanied the post.
Citizens responded in the comments. One user posted photos of Edgar Jovani, Jeremy, and Brian Samuel with the message: “You celebrate, because there are many who won’t be able to.” Page administrators deleted that comment. Other critical replies remained visible, including one urging voters: “What can you expect from these birdbrains. Don’t elect them again.”
On the sidewalk facing Boulevard Benito Juárez, the most heavily trafficked stretch in Tecate, families covered the city’s tourist sign with printed images of disappeared persons. The protest unfolded just meters from where the city had set up its viewing screen.
Accountability Gap Between Tecate Families and City Hall
Tecate’s municipal government operates with a small police force and limited investigative capacity. Serious crimes, including homicides and disappearances, fall under the FGE’s jurisdiction at the state level. But municipal presidents still control local policing, public safety budgets, and the political tone of a city’s response to violence. When a mayor chooses to celebrate rather than acknowledge, families notice.
If you live in or visit Tecate, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Young people in the area are being targeted through fraudulent employment offers. The city government has not announced any public awareness campaign or prevention program in response to these three deaths. Local search collectives remain the most active civic organizations tracking disappearances in the municipality.
The FGE’s investigation into the three deaths is ongoing, with formal identification of the remains still pending as of June 11. The families have called for a public accounting of what happened during the 52 days their children were missing. This story was first reported by Punto Norte.