SALTILLO, Coahuila — A Mexican court sentenced two police officers from the city of Saltillo to prison for their role in a string of armed robberies and rapes. The attacks occurred as the cops claimed to be carrying out police raids. The victims in all of the cases were underage teen females ranging from 12-17 years of age; they were raped at gunpoint.

A state judge in Coahuila handed down an 18-year prison sentence this week against Saltillo Police Officer Carmelo Diego Mancillas Rolon for his role in a series of violent armed robberies and brutal rapes that took place in 2016. The police officers were members of an elite task force called Centaurs. Instead of taking on organized crime, they carried out a series of armed robberies and rapes that terrorized the city. Saltillo is the state capital of the border state of Coahuila. The region has a long history of being used by drug cartels, primarily Los Zetas, to move drugs into Texas. The region is also well known for corruption where public officials and police officers protect drug cartels in exchange for hefty bribes.

Mancillas is the second police officer from the Centaurs unit to be sentenced in the case. Another judge sentenced Roberto Carlos Casillas Castillo to 13 years in prison earlier this year for his role in the case. Two more police officers Marino Jimenez Cruz and Roberto Santander remain behind bars awaiting further court proceedings in their case.

According to court documents filed in the case 353/2016, the team of police officers used unmarked SUVs to raid a home in Saltillo where they pretended to be state cops. The group pretended to carry out a drug raid but actually robbed the home taking electronics and other items. The officers then raped at gunpoint a 12-year-old girl who was at the house. In another case, the local cops pretended to be members of an elite state police unit and also pretended to carry out a drug raid but only to steal items from the home. In other robberies, the officers have been linked to the rape of a 15-year-old teen girl and the rape of a 17-year-old girl.

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 Coahuila.