When a French woman called Florence Cassez moved to Mexico to be with her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, in 2005, she could have never predicted that she would be imprisoned for 60 years for kidnapping just a few months later.
The case that then unfolded is all hinged on what side of the explanation you fell on: was she the mastermind of one of the most terrifying Mexican kidnapping groups of all time, or was it a set up, and a gross miscarriage of justice inflicted upon an innocent woman?
It’s a case that was covered for years by the media, in particular the French and Mexican press, and splits opinion. Now, as Netflix release a documentary, A Kidnapping Scandal: The Florence Cassez Affair (based on the book Una Novela Criminal by Jorge Volpi), the focus is once again on this strange story, this time opening it up to a wider global audience.
Who is Florence Cassez?
In 2003, Florence Cassez, then 31, took a trip to Mexico to visit her brother and his Mexican wife. While there, she met Israel Vallarta, who she began a relationship with, but according to The New York Times: “The pair began a difficult relationship that alienated her friends, who sensed that he was in trouble.” They briefly broke up, but eventually Cassez moved into his ranch, south of Mexico City, in 2005.
But on 8 December, 2005, police swooped in and arrested Cassez and Vallarta while they were driving along a highway. Instead of being held in the police station she was taken back to the ranch, where the Mexican FBI had invited TV news reporters and cameramen, and where they staged a fake raid and arrest in which they ‘rescued” three kidnapped people being held in the ranch. Cassez and Vallarta were arrested publicly and accused of running Los Zodiacos (The Zodiacs), a prominent gang of kidnappers who had terrorised the Mexican public for years.
Cassez says that she had broken up with Vallarta at the time, and that the authorities planted her back into the ranch for the televised raid. The Guardian said it had been set up “by the government as proof that it was winning the battle against organised crime”, however the authorities claimed it was at the media’s request that the fake rescue-and-arrest took place. “All we tried to do was serve you, the media,” the attorney general, Daniel Cabeza de Vaca, told a news conference.
The evidence hinged on four people, three of which were the kidnap victims, the other a part of the kidnapping group. The first was a mother and her 11-year-old son who at first said they didn’t recognise Cassez’s voice while abducted, then changed their testimony to claim that she had tortured and taunted them. The third was a man who maintains to this day that it was Cassez and Vallarta who were abusing him. The final witness was a man, David Orozco, who claimed that Vallarta and Cassez were the leaders of The Zodiacs, but who later denied what he had said, and, according to France 24, claimed the video of him speaking had been taken under duress, and that “he was kidnapped by masked gunmen who turned out to be policemen. He said they beat him, administered electric shocks, and threatened to kidnap his wife and son before forcing him to issue a televised statement against Cassez.”
These inconsistencies weren’t enough to exonerate Cassez, and despite the incredibly illegal manner in which she was arrested (the BBC reported “she was denied consular assistance for more than a day after being arrested, in breach of the Vienna Convention”) she was sent to prison until her court case, which took place three years later. In April 2008, she was sentenced to 96 years in prison and found guilty of organised crime, illegal deprivation of three people's liberty and possession of firearms used exclusively by the army. A year later the sentence was reduced to 60 years.
Where is Florence Cassez now?
Cassez has always denied all charges, and in the documentary, she talks about the situation she found herself in. While her ex-boyfriend Vallarta, who is still in prison now, admits to being part of the kidnapping ring, even he confirmed that she knew nothing about the people who were kidnapped, and had nothing to do with it.
According to The New York Times, Vallarta said that he had taken the victim to the ranch from another safe house because his accomplices were threatening to hurt the victims. The police never arrested anybody else in the kidnapping ring.
It appeared as though Cassez was being made a scapegoat, and international relations became strained when authorities tried to get Cassez freed.
In 2009, under the Strasbourg Convention, Nicholas Sarkozy, on a visit to Mexico, requested that she be transferred to a French jail to carry out the rest of her term. Mexican authorities denied this. According to CSMonitor, French Foreign Ministry officials criticised Mexico’s handling of the case as “appalling,” and Sarkozy said the issue would be raised at the G-20. In 2010, her lawyers went to the Mexican Supreme Court arguing that her arrest was unconstitutional and that her rights were violated, however her conviction was upheld.
It wasn’t until January 2013 – almost eight years after being arrested – that the Mexican Supreme Court accepted her release petition, and she was free to fly home to France from Tepepan prison. As the BBC reported: “Her current legal status in that regard is as though no case had ever been brought against her: she is considered neither guilty nor innocent. Rather, the case was thrown out because of a series of breaches of her legal and human rights.”
On her release, she went to the Elysee Palace to be greeted by the then-president Francois Hollande, where she told reporters: “My release is a great victory for Mexicans” and added that she viewed herself as a “victim” of the failing justice system.
Kidnapping Scandal: The Florence Cassez Affair streams on Netflix from August 25.
