Mexican cannibal cartel forced new recruits to EAT THE HEARTS of people they murdered

• La Familia Michoacana accused of carrying out disgusting initiations
• Allegedly forced hopefuls to eat hearts of victims to prove their loyalty
• Splinter group the Knights Templar also took part, witnesses said
• Decurity official said sometimes initiates would dismember live victims

New recruits to a vicious Mexican drug cartel were forced to eat the hearts of murder victims in a twisted scheme to prove their loyalty, officials said.

Hopefuls who wanted to join La Familia Michoacana were reportedly fed the internal organs during gruesome initiation ceremonies designed to roof out infiltrators or other disloyal elements.

Witnesses told government security bosses how La Familia, and offshoot an offshoot group called the Knights Templar, would also sometimes force potential cartel members to dismember victims while they were still alive.
 

Accusations: A Mexican government official said the heart-eating ceremonies were being carried out by La Familia Michoacana gang. Pictured above are two suspected gang leaders at a 2010 news conference

Loyalty: The macabre displays are reportedly a way to make sure prospective cartel members are not simply trying to infiltrate the organization

Alfredo Castillo, the federal security commissioner for gang-ravaged Mexican state Michoacan, told local television: 'The ritual ranged from dismembering people they intended to kill to sometimes serving up the heart.'

He said that the practice was not widespread, but was emphatic that it had taken place, seemingly on several occasions.

He did not elaborate on who provided the testimony and did not specify when and where the alleged initiation rituals took place. Castillo could not immediately be reached for comment.

Both of the allegedly cannibal gangs were founded by Nazario Moreno, or 'The Craziest One,' a cultish crime boss who was finally killed in March 2014.

The previous government had wrongly declared him dead in 2010.

The macabre revelation comes as Michoacan, a mountainous, agricultural state in western Mexico, has been ravaged by fighting between drug gang henchmen and vigilantes who took up arms against the cartels but have since splintered into violent factions.

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A mid-December shootout between two rival groups that killed 11 people has reignited fears the government is failing to control the state after flooding it with federal troops and pressing vigilantes into a fledgling rural police force.

Meanwhile President Enrique Pena Nieto faces his deepest crisis since taking office, following the apparent murder of 43 trainee teachers by a drug gang working with corrupt police in neighboring Guerrero state.

The incident sparked widespread protests against the government, compounded by conflict-of-interest scandals enveloping the president and his finance minister. Pena Nieto was expected to discuss Mexico's chronic violence with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday.

More than 100,000 have been killed in gang-related violence in Mexico since 2007. DailyMail