Photos and belongings of missing people on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances in Saltillo, Mexico, in 2013. Daniel Becerril / Reuters / Landov

The cycle of great violence — rampant assassinations, kidnappings and extortion —went into decline in mid-2013, a few months before Mexico’s Congress approved landmark reforms opening the energy industry to private capital for the first time in over 80 years.

“No one has yet dared to link one thing with the other, but when they do, they will realize that nothing was spontaneous,” said the former official in Moreira’s government. “The opening of the doors to this cartel carries very specific signals that impact the everyday lives of everyone.”

Moreira left his position as governor to lead the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2011. He resigned from that position in January 2011 after a scandal erupted over Coahuila’s debt ballooning from $27 million to nearly $3 billion while he was governor; his treasurer landed in prison on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and fraud. Forbes cited Moreira as one the 10 most corrupt Mexicans of 2013. Today Coahuila is governed by one of his brothers, Rubén Moreira.

In addition to the skyrocketing rate of homicides, perhaps the most terrible legacy of the spike in violence were forced disappearances — some 8,000 people from 2009 to 2014, according to the United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, an organization of victims’ family members. However the group cannot confirm which disappearances were carried out by state forces and which by narcotrafficking groups.

An an elite police force, ruthless and brutal, the Special Weapons Tactical Group (GATE), was formed in 2009 and really became operational in 2011 while Rubén Moreira was governor. GATE was created to respond to high-impact crimes.

Before sunrise on July 10, 2013, Victor Manuel Guajardo, 36, was at home with his wife and two younger children in their working-class neighborhood of Piedras Negras, just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.

Around 3 a.m., they awoke startled after officers in uniform and black masks broke down the door with their rifles. Guajardo was severely beaten in front of his family and forced to climb into a black pickup truck.

Guajardo’s wife, Midiam Icelda Valdez, called her mother-in-law, a former federal agent, María Hortencia Rivas. The two women rushed to the GATE base in Piedras Negras, where they saw Guajardo with his hands and feet tied in the back of a truck. However, the official in charge denied having him, and while the women were distracted, GATE got rid of Guajardo.

In the following days, Rivas met with other mothers who shared similar stories. Together they formed Families United in the Search and Location of Missing People.

In six months the association documented 49 cases of forced disappearances carried out by GATE. The number of cases, which grows by two or three each week, led the mothers to seek legal advice from former prosecutor Ariana García Bosque, who discovered that GATE had acted without legal foundation since its formation.

"Before June 10, 2014, there was no legally existing State Security Coordination, which, according to the documentation submitted by the government, is the entity to which the GATE belongs. This means that all operations conducted by this elite body were illegal. What they did was commit simple homicide," García said.

GATE not only operates in practice as a clandestine group; it moves clandestinely. Its members use all-black vans without license plates and often drive with the lights off, with six or more members on board dressed in black or camouflage, body armor, helmets and masks. All their equipment, García said, is illegal and does not meet public safety rules.

On Dec. 6, García attended a meeting called by Rubén Moreira with the families of the disappeared. The event was promoted as a demonstration of institutional commitment to locating the missing people. But when García referred to the irregularities and crimes committed by GATE, Moreira interrupted her. “I’ll listen to you, but I’m not necessarily going to believe you,” he said.

“Clearly the elements of this corporation are protected,” she told Al Jazeera of the meeting. “And what is the reading that I have of this? Well, you have to send a message to their northern neighbors that violence in the state is controlled, that there is no longer the threat of organized crime if you come to invest, because there’s a highly effective police force able to defend them.”