Mexico Kidnapping Update: Mexican Police Say Victim 13 Of 'Heaven' Bar Murders Helped Carry Out Plan

Mexican authorities have confirmed the identity of the thirteenth body in the "Heaven" bar murders as that of Alan Francisco Daniel Menchaca Bazán, who police are saying betrayed two of his friends to a Mexico City drug gang in May and, in turn, was betrayed by the gang. Menchaca's body was found on August 22 along with 12 others in a clandestine grave on a ranch in Tlalmanalco, east of Mexico City, after investigators searched the ranch on a tip that it was being used to stash weapons.

All of the victims hailed from the rough Mexico City neighborhood of Tepito. Two of them, 16-year-old Jerzy Eslí Ortiz Ponce, and 19-year-old Alejandro Said Sánchez García, were the sons of high-ranking gang members - Jorge Ortiz Reyes or "El Tanque", and Alejandro Sánchez or "El Papis", respectively - who are serving prison sentences after being convicted on murder and drug-dealing charges. The two teenagers were known to be friends with Menchaca, who authorities believe asked them to meet him in "Heaven", a bar in the upscale Mexico City nightlife district of Zona Rosa, telling them that drinks would be on the house that night. A group of armed men in five cars disguised as police vehicles would arrive later in the night and order all 12 of the youths into their cars. Police suspect that those 10 were murdered along with the two teenage targets so as not to leave possible witnesses.

According to Animal Politico, Menchaca was also friends with two other victims, brothers Josué and Aarón Piedra Moreno. Leticia Moreno, the young men's mother, told the site that when she and other family members of the kidnapped youths took to the streets to demand authorities pursue an investigation into their disappearances, she carried a photograph of Menchaca along with those of her sons. El Universal writes that Mexico City's public prosecutor's office believes that the identity of Menchaca and his ties to the city's drug gangs will be the link that leads them to the murderers. Two of the owners of Heaven bar, Mario Ledezma and Ernesto Espinosa Lobo, have already been arrested. They have told authorities that the powerful Union of Insurgentes gang, which controls nearly all of the drug trafficking in the city's glitzy nightlife districts, had threatened to kill them if they didn't let them deal drugs in their bar.

RELATED: 10 Bodies Identified As Heaven Bar Kidnap Victims; 16-Year-Old Jerzy Ortiz Ponce, Son Of 'El Tanque', Among Dead