PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — Two former cops from this border state have been sent to prison in connection with the murder and kidnapping of three ranchers in 2015.

During a court hearing on Friday afternoon, Juan Carlos Favela Mares and Lauro Arturo Lerma Orozco were formally sentenced to 40 and 45 years in prison, respectively. The two men had been Coahuila state police officers since 2011 until their arrest.

The two former cops were convicted of having kidnapped and murdered three cattlemen from the Mexican state of Zacatecas, who were traveling to Piedras Negras. The cowboys were moving about 300 head of cattle to the border when the kidnapping took place near the rural community of Castaños, Coahuila, about 250 miles south of the Texas border. Court records do not reveal if the kidnapping was for ransom, however the three were eventually murdered. Authorities discovered the bodies of the three victims inside a vehicle. The victims had been handcuffed and shot in the head.

As Breitbart Texas has reported, Coahuila is the border state where the Los Zetas cartel was able to kidnap, murder and incinerate more than 300 victims from rural communities in the norther part of the state between 2011 and 2013. Half of the victims from the kidnappings were incinerated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. High ranking government officials, including a former Coahuila governor, have been implicated in U.S. court hearings of having provided protection to Los Zetas.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.M. Martinez” from Piedras Negras, Coahuila.