The bodies were found inside a ranch on 24 August 2010 by the Mexican military after they engaged in an armed confrontation with members of a drug cartel.

[3][4] They received information of the place after one of the three survivors survived a shot to the neck and face, faked his death, and then fled to a military checkpoint to seek help.

On 17 June 2011 the Federal Police captured Édgar Huerta Montiel, alias El Wache, the major perpetrator of the mass murder.

[10] The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities asked for those responsible "to be brought to justice for such atrocity", and Amnesty International said that this "human rights crisis" is a result of "one of the most dangerous trajectories" undocumented immigrants have to cross before reaching the United States.

"[14] According to Amnesty International, armed and violent robberies used to be the biggest threat to those traveling up north; nowadays, kidnappings by organized crime groups are the norm (in this case, Los Zetas).

[14] Torture is a common method used in incidents like this, and several victims have claimed after their liberation that they have seen people killed before their eyes for failing to pay their ransom.

[19] Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses.

[20]Local residents claim that arms trafficking, car thefts, and drug trade have "always existed" in San Fernando, but in 2004 Los Zetas arrived in the area.

[21] They began to establish themselves little by little, and local residents remember seeing convoys of "luxurious trucks entering and leaving the city, going into stores and buying goods".

[22]Before the violence erupted in Tamaulipas, San Fernando was known for its bass fishing and dove hunting, and the area had long been popular with outdoor enthusiasts from Texas and other US states.

[34] In the city of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, the Gulf Cartel forces of Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, alias Tony Tormenta, "strung the bodies of fallen Zetas and their associates from light poles".

According to The Monitor, the municipality of San Fernando is a "virtual spiderweb" of dirt roads that connect with Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros—making it a prized territory for drug traffickers.

[36] According to Pharr, Texas police, the Davises encountered a group of heavily armed men, who tried to force their blue 2008 Chevrolet 2500 pickup off the highway.

[41] When he was asked what had happened, he mentioned that they did not have money to pay for the ransom,[42] and that the killers had forced them to work as hitmen for Los Zetas, and that they would receive over $1000 U.S. dollars every fifteen days.

At first, the authorities did not believe the survivor (since there had been similar occasions that have resulted in ambushes), but a commander of the military led an operative to the ranch where the bodies were allegedly located.

[46] The turf war between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, two powerful drug trafficking organizations who operate in northeastern Mexico and in Tamaulipas, were blamed by the Mexican authorities for the massacre of the 72 migrants.

[51] The top investigator of the massacre, Roberto Jaime Suárez, went missing along with another police officer in San Fernando, Tamaulipas on 25 August 2010.

[55] This movement was part of the caravan known as Madres Buscando a sus Hijos ("Mothers Looking for their Children"), a group of protestors demanding action from the authorities for the disappearances in Mexico.

[55] A group of 40 women activists traveled from Honduras to San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico in March 2012 through the same routes undocumented immigrants go through on their way to the United States.

[57] After the massacre of the 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, several "authors, journalists, analysts, activists, political scientists, and artists" brought homage to those killed with a book, a webpage, and several mentions in the official radio station of National Autonomous University of Mexico.

[59] The Federal Police captured Édgar Huerta Montiel, alias El Wache, a high-ranking lieutenant of Los Zetas and the main person responsible of the killings of the 72 immigrants, on 17 June 2011 in Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

[61] Huerta Montiel was the boss of Martín Estrada Luna, alias El Kilo, one of the main perpetrators of the second massacre in San Fernando, where 193 corpses were exhumed from clandestine mass graves.

[67] Between 6 April and 7 June 2011, the Mexican authorities found 193 people buried in clandestine mass graves in San Fernando, Tamaulipas.

[68][69] Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were later killed and buried in 47 clandestine mass graves.

[71] The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, said immediately through Twitter after the incident that he sends his most profound condolences and repudiates what happened in Tamaulipas.

[72] That same night, the President issued a communiqué saying that "these incidents are a result of the war between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel", two rivaling drug groups in Tamaulipas.

[72] Alejandro Poiré Romero, the former security spokesman for Mexico, claimed that Los Zetas has been kidnapping immigrants and other civilians and recruiting them by force due to the hard hits it has received from the Mexican government.

[73] The former Secretary of Interior, Francisco Blake Mora, affirmed that the Mexican government will work with "greater intelligence agencies and with more federal agents were it is needed" to combat the criminal organizations where it is required to do so.

[74] An "anti-monument" in the form of +72 is erected on August 22, 2020 along Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City in front of the U.S. Embassy to conmemorate the massacre.