The trial of a 14-year-old hit man for a Mexican drug cartel, who admitted to beheading four people and suspected of killing three more, has started in Mexico.

Edgar Jimenez, known as 'El Ponchis', is a US citizen and was arrested last December while he was trying to flee to San Diego. He admitted to interrogators that he killed four people by slitting their throat. According to Chron.com, his pay per each killing was $2,500. He had worked for the South Pacific Cartel, a splinter faction of Beltran Leyva crime syndicate.

The teen hit man said he was 'stoned on marijuana' and had to follow orders of the drug gang or else he would have been their victim. He said he had been abducted as an 11-year-old and was forced to join the drug mafia. His two teenage sisters were also reportedly working for the mafia group and one of them had helped him dispose of the bodies of his victims.

Daily Mail reported that if Jimenez is found guilty, he could be sentenced only to a three-year jail term, as this is the maximum punishment that can be given to criminals of his age.

The juvenile delinquent was seen in a CNN video stating that he slit their throats, asked how he killed his victims.

I participated in four executions, but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't they would kill me, the boy said.

Thousands of people are killed every year in clashes related to the drug mafia. According to a Reuters report in July 2009, around 12,300 people had died across Mexico in a three-way war between rival cartels and the military ever since the government started crushing the cartels in 2006.

The LA Times said last year at least 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico since the clampdown started.

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