Murder of Fernando Balderas Sánchez and Yolanda Figueroa

Murder of Fernando Balderas Sánchez and Yolanda Figueroa (4 December 1996) was an unusual group killing of two married journalists and their three children in Mexico City, Mexico that had the possibilities of being linked with drug cartels, corruption, criminal activities, or their work as journalists.

Fernando Balderas Sánchez (1952 – 4 December 1996) was the publisher of Cuarto Poder (Translated: Fourth Estate), a crime magazine. For this publication, he could use his previous experience as a former Federal Judicial Police official. At the time of his murder, Balderas' reputation was called into question. Two reputable newspapers reported that sources told them Balderas was under investigation for taking money from drug cartels while he had worked in law enforcement, and he was accused of a sexual assault on his two maids but the warrant for his arrest was never served.

Yolanda Figueroa Ojeda (ca. 1956 – 4 December 1996) published in August 1996 her biographical account of narcotrafficker Juan García Ábrego and his Gulf Cartel, called El Capo del Golfo (Translated: The Capo of the Gulf). The crime boss was convicted in the United States in October 1996 and two months before the murder. She had dedicated her book to Ricardo Cordero Ontiveros, Mexico's attorney general, who was fired and confined days before the family was murdered.

One theory involved the drug cartel retaliation for the book Yolanda Figueroa had just published about the capture of drug lord Juan García Ábrego. García was the head of the Gulf Cartel, which controlled the Tamaulipas and Nuevo León areas at the time he was caught 14 January 1996. He was convicted two months before the murder. The United States had first put out a warrant for his arrest in 1993 and he had been on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in 1995. Proponents of this theory believed Figueroa's book and dedication to the attorney general made her a target. The style of the murder, however, did not match previous drug-related executions, and skeptics said the murders high visibility carried risks of a backlash against the cartels.

The International Press Institute said the murder of Figueroa's family was the most violent in 1996. Homero Aridjis, a writer and environmental activist who would be elected to head PEN International in 1997, said, "There has been nothing like this before. This is creating an atmosphere of narco-terrorism like Colombia. People are living in terror. They don't want to write, they don't want to talk about drug trafficking." Rick Rockwell, a professor of journalism at Northwestern University, wrote, "Although it is far too early in the investigation to know who is behind this multiple murder or whether corrupt government officials might have ties to it, it is clear there's a battle against honest journalism going on south of the border--and the journalists are losing." Eduardo Valle, a source for Figueroa's book, said, "You die if you write about this stuff. If you get to the bottom of this drug trafficking, they will kill you."