Eight years have passed since the day Mexican authorities detained a man named Santiago Meza López. At that time, President Felipe Calderón’s administration began referring to Meza as El Pozolero ("The Stewmaker"), a reference to the fact that he was believed to have dissolved some 300 people in caustic soda.

Information obtained by VICE News en Español via the Federation of Judicial Power —which is in charge of imposing sentences in Mexico—revealed that to date, Meza López still hasn't been formally sentenced**,** despite admitting to these horrible acts and being convicted of crimes.

In a press release distributed by the Attorney General's office on January 25, 2009, Meza López was portrayed as one of the most ruthless drug traffickers in the game, and the official description of him suggested he'd be subjected to a severe sentence. Almost a decade later, the reality is quite different.

For now, he remains incarcerated in the Almoloya de Juárez prison in the State of Mexico, where he finished a primary school education and learned how to write.

As can be read in his file, around mid-2015, a formal prison sentence was handed down due to Meza López's involvement in organized crime and illegal deprivation of freedom. But his defense attorney has managed to lodge various stays that have been accepted by judges, pushing back the official date for sentencing.

Nevertheless, in the northern part of the country—the farthest point from the capital—lies the border city of Tijuana, where human remains keep being dug out of the earth, presumably those that were dissolved by Meza López.

They appear every time it rains, every time the wind moves the soil, every time a group of family members of the disappeared shows up with a pick axe and a shovel to look for the remains of their children, fathers, and grandsons.

According to Fernando Ocegueda, president of the association United for the Disappeared (Unidos por los Desaparecidos, in Spanish), 16,500 liters of organic matter have been extracted thus far.