Jake and Callum Robinson’s accused killers linked to Mexican cartel, court document says
Exclusive by North America correspondent Carrington Clarke, Bradley McLennan and Aline Corpus in Baja California, Mexico
In short:
Australian surfers Jake and Callum Robinson, and their American friend Carter Rhoad, were shot dead near their campsite in Mexico last year. Local authorities said it was a robbery gone wrong, with no evidence of criminal cartel links.
But a court document seen by the ABC reveals two of the accused killers are affiliated with one of Mexico’s biggest cartels, and they have been moved to a higher security prison because of their organised crime links.
What’s next?
The matter will return to court on July 25. A trial date is yet to be determined.
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Two men charged with the murders of Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson in Mexico have been transferred to a maximum-security prison due to their alleged ties to organised crime, the ABC can reveal.
Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco have appeared via videolink in court in Ensenada, Mexico, from the high-security “El Hongo” prison in the Mexican desert.
Two co-accused, Ángel Jesús and Ari Gisell, faced court in person, dressed in orange prison suits and manacled together at the ankles.
All four defendants are charged with the aggravated homicide of the surfers from Perth and their American friend, Carter Rhoad, who were killed while camping in remote northern Mexico last year.
The parents of all three victims dialled into the proceedings, which were translated from Spanish into English, via videolink.
The men were shot dead in Baja California, a state of Mexico known for violent cartel activity that often targets innocent victims. It prompted early speculation about criminal cartel involvement.
Local authorities said they believed it was a robbery gone wrong and there was no evidence of cartel links.
But documents published by the court reveal for the first time that Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco have alleged links to the notoriously violent Sinaloa cartel, which earlier this year was designated a terror group by the Trump administration.
According to an appeals court decision from last year, the two men were transferred from a local prison in the city of Ensenada in August, after the court found they “require special security measures given that penitentiary authorities have identified them as members of criminal groups affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel”.
One of the defendants had “claimed within the detention centre population that he can escape confinement at any time he chooses, in addition to participating in the use of prohibited substances on behalf of the gang known as ‘Los Paisas'”, the documents say.
Lawyers for the accused opposed the transfer, but two courts upheld the decision. The documents said both courts were satisfied that the men had connections to criminal groups operating in service of the cartel.
The courts also accepted evidence from prison authorities that the men posed a significant security and governance risk at the Ensenada facility.
The court of appeals noted that both men had “high criminal capacity, high aggressiveness, emotional detachment, high egocentricity, and marked emotional instability”.
The appeals court decision was released online through the Baja California court’s transparency process. Although the names were blacked out, the ABC was able to identify the suspects in a section of the document that was not properly redacted.
In addition to the homicide charge, all four defendants face charges of aggravated robbery, violent robbery and grand theft auto.
The three men were initially also charged with forced disappearance, but prosecutors have dropped that charge for two of the men, and will only proceed with it against Jesús Gerardo.
A court previously heard that Jesús Gerardo visited Ari Gisell, his then-girlfriend, shortly after the killings. He allegedly told her: “I f****ed up three gringos.”
The forced disappearance charge means Jesús Gerardo could face two separate trials: one for that offence, and one for all other charges.
But at the hearing on Thursday, local time, his lawyer asked the court to consolidate the trials. Prosecutors asked for time to respond and the hearing was adjourned until July 25.
The defendants’ surnames have been withheld under Mexican legal conventions.
‘Resembles the behaviour of organised crime groups’
Jake Robinson, a 31-year-old doctor, was due to start a job at Geelong Hospital after visiting his brother Callum, 32, who had been living in the US for 12 years.
They were reported missing in late April of 2024 while travelling with Carter Rhoad, 33, after losing contact with their family in Australia and failing to check into their Airbnb. Search teams discovered their bodies several days later.
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Local authorities initially said there was no evidence of a cartel connection and did not publicly identify the suspects as gang members. The newly released court documents are the first to officially link two of the accused to organised crime.
This supports the theory of former Ensenada police director Jesús Luna Lezama, who previously told the ABC the murders bore “the hallmarks of organised crime”.
Lead prosecutor Miguel Ángel Gaxiola Rodríguez maintains that the alleged killers’ primary motive was to steal the tyres from the victims’ vehicle. However, in a new interview ahead of Friday’s court hearing, Mr Lezama said he continued to believe that the brutality of the crimes suggested gang involvement.
“What started as a minor crime — car theft — turned into forced disappearance and the murder of three people, in a way that closely resembles the behaviour of organised crime groups,” he told the ABC.
Investigators said all three victims were executed with a single gunshot to the head before their bodies were dumped in a well, where the body of a local farmer was also found.
The brothers’ burnt-out car was dumped on a ranch, with its tyres missing. Their campsite was also burnt out.
“It could have been an isolated incident, not necessarily directed by cartel leadership,” Mr Lezama said.
“These groups often avoid drawing attention from authorities.”
He suggests federal authorities should consider taking over the investigation.
“Given the suspects’ cartel ties, federal oversight may be warranted — not just local judges, but federal ones,” he said.
“That’s why it’s important they remain in federal detention centres.”
Mexico’s most dangerous cartels
The US government considers the Sinaloa cartel and its rival, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, to be the two largest and most dangerous in Mexico.
A US Drug Enforcement Administration threat assessment report last year said: “They are not just drug manufacturers and traffickers; they are organised crime groups, involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, migrant smuggling, sex trafficking, bribery, extortion, and a host of other crimes.
Zulia Orozco, an organised crime researcher at Baja California State University, said the Sinaloa Cartel had expanded its influence dramatically over the past two decades using “very violent techniques”.
She doubts the cartel directly ordered the Australians’ killings.
“Organised crime usually avoids targeting foreigners to prevent media attention,” she said.
Still, she said, the cartel continues to terrorise local communities in what she describes as a “lawless” region:
“The community is essentially on its own, without support from security forces.”
Mr Lezama said the killings had a lasting impact on Baja California’s surfing community.
“It’s still a topic of conversation,” he said.
“Especially among surfers and frequent visitors, who now travel with greater caution — particularly to remote or isolated areas.”
— with ABC NEWS Verify’s Matt Martino, and Phoebe Hosier in Washington DC
Lapu Lapu Day attack: Despite mental illness, accused killers can still be convicted
Former attorney general Wally Oppal says even when an accused killer has documented mental health issues, they can still be convicted
Author of the article:
By Kim Bolan
Published Apr 28, 2025
Last updated Apr 29, 2025
5 minute read
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Former attorney general Wally Oppal says that even when an accused killer has documented mental health problems, they can still be convicted for their crimes.
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Kai-ji Adam Lo, accused of plowing his SUV into a crowd Saturday afternoon, killing 11 and injuring more than 30, had dozens of interactions with police related to his mental health issues.
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He’s facing eight counts of second-degree murder with more charges expected as the police investigation continues. The 30-year-old will next appear in court in May.
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Postmedia has reported that a relative of Lo’s had contacted a psychiatric facility for assistance the same day as Saturday’s deadly rampage at the Filipino community’s Lapu Lapu Day festival on East 43rd near Fraser Street.
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Vancouver Police Sgt. Steve Addison confirmed Monday that police dealt with Lo on April 25 — a day before the killings — but “it did not rise to the level” where mental health intervention was necessary.
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Addison said seven victims are still in critical condition and three others remain in serious condition. He said the dead include nine woman and girls and two men.
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Lo’s lawyer Mark Swartz said he couldn’t comment on whether he will raise his client’s mental health issues in his eventual defence at trial.
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“There’s nothing I can unfortunately share at this time, as you probably appreciate,” Swartz said Monday. “There’s still a lot to unfold.”
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But legal experts said that even with a documented history of mental illness, an accused has an uphill battle to convince a judge that they should be found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder, also known as NCRMD.
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Read More
- ‘Fight for your kids’: Family devastated by critical injuries in Lapu Lapu Day tragedy
- Driver charged with 8 counts of murder in Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day tragedy
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Oppal said cases with “not criminally responsible” defences are rare in criminal proceedings.
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The former justice and prosecutor said that the mental disorder has to be so significant that it prevented an accused from understanding “the nature or quality of the act committed further knowing that it was wrong.”
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“That’s not easy to prove, and the onus is always on the person who alleges it,” Oppal said.
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In videos circulated online after Lo was apprehended by bystanders Saturday, the accused killer can be heard saying sorry.
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Defence lawyer Kevin Westell said the public should be reassured that “it’s extremely difficult” for an accused criminal to get the not criminally responsible finding.
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“I think there’s a cynical view of not criminally responsible cases. It’s actually quite hard to establish that somebody was NCRMD to the extent that it would afford them a legal excuse from a life sentence,” said Westell.
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“It’s not enough to prove that somebody had a major mental disorder. It has to be a major mental disorder, a disease of the mind, affecting them at the time of the act and it has to be affecting them to the extent that they can’t tell right from wrong, or can’t tell fantasy from reality.”
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And like Oppal, he noted that “burden that falls on the accused to prove.”
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“You may be schizophrenic, and you may even suffer from delusions in your life, but after … two experienced psychiatrists have examined you, spoken to you and analyzed what you have to say and found that you weren’t deprived of your ability to understand fantasy from reality or wrong from right at the time of the offence, you’re not going anywhere but to the penitentiary,” Westell said.
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High-profile cases like that of Allan Schoenborn, who killed his three children in 2008 but was found not criminally responsible, influence public perceptions. He remains in a forensic psychiatric hospital but was made eligible for 28-day unescorted leaves.
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But Westell said that in some cases, those who are found not criminal responsible are detained in hospitals longer than criminal sentences they would have received.
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“There are many, many patients found in NCRMD for far less serious offences who end up being incarcerated for years, if not indefinitely, just because they’re deemed by the review board to be not safe for release,” he said.
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Despite the many police contacts with Lo before Saturday’s mass murder, it would have been challenging to make a case for an earlier arrest, Oppal said.
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“You can’t just go and arrest somebody on a whim, and you can’t go and take someone in custody if there isn’t a reasonable and probable ground because we have certain freedoms,” Oppal said.
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“With the benefit of hindsight, people would have arrested him in a minute, but how was anybody to know that? The problem with issues like this — the workings of a madman — is that they’re so difficult to predict.”
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On Sunday night, Vancouver Police searched the east Vancouver home Lo shared with his mother Lisa.
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When contractor Martin Tang saw Postmedia’s video of the search online, he recognized it as the property where he had built a laneway house, beginning in 2022.
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Tang, owner of Metro City Projects, said he first met Adam Lo in 2022 after he had signed a contract with Lisa Lo.
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He said Lisa wanted to build the laneway house for her older son Alex because he had mental health issues and she wanted to help him live independently.
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Tang said Alex, who was murdered last year in Vancouver, was volatile and always yelling and fighting with his mother. He even assaulted Tang’s wife when she went back to the laneway house to deal with some deficiencies after it was completed, the contractor said.
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But Adam, at the time, appeared successful and intelligent, Tang recalled.
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“I told myself Lisa is lucky because she still has Adam, a good son,” he said. “At that time, Adam looked very normal … this is my impression on Adam.”
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He said the image he saw on TV of the suspect in the mass murder was barely recognizable as the impressive young man who picked finishes for the laneway project.
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“I’m shocked. I don’t even believe it in the beginning,” he said.
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Tang said he wasn’t paid in full for the work his company did for the family, but before he could file a claim against them, they filed one against him in small claims court. He filed a counter suit that was settled after mediation. He got $8,000 back, though says he was owed more.
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He thinks the murder of Alex Lo, the eldest son, led to the family breakdown.
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“I think that this was the whole beginning of it,” Tang said.
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Blueksy: @kimbolan.bsky.social
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Read more of our coverage of the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy:
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• ‘Fight for your kids’: Family devastated by critical injuries in Lapu Lapu Day tragedy
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• Lapu Lapu Day massacre update: Seven victims still in critical condition
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• Vancouver’s Filipino Christians devastated by mass killing
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• Lapu Lapu Day attack: Despite mental illness, accused killers can still be convicted
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• B.C. legislature honour victims of festival attack, then adjourns for the day
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