Drugs, Murder and Mexico

Different version of above story:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2013/Sinaloa-Cartel/

Hey, has anyone else seen The Counselor? Because it feels like it really is about trying to comprehend cartel violence, instead of just using it for a pulpy story.

Meanwhile:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/28/mexican-militias-vigilantes-drug-cartels

can't see that ending well

not Mexico but good ol' Mexico style drug violence

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/1830745-brazilian-footballers-decapitated-head-reportedly-sent-to-wife-by-drug-lords?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

http://www.avclub.com/review/narco-cultura-explores-mexican-drug-cartels-and-th-105858

http://www.vocativ.com/11-2013/avocado/

This one's especially sad/fascinating.

it seems like they're bleeding everyone dry. even the waiters and bartenders in Cancun (who may not even make $15k a year) have to pay a fee or get burned alive.

great photo essay about grupos autodefensas that are disarming cartels (and others) in various mexican states
http://www.businessinsider.com/mexican-vigilantes-battle-drug-cartel-photos-2014-1

el chapo -- arrested! http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-mexico-drug-arrest-20140222,0,4503693.story#axzz2u4Q6KWth

MEXICO CITY -- Joaquin Guzman, "El Chapo," the most wanted drug lord in Mexico and a multibillionaire fugitive, has been captured, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.
Few details were available. But Guzman has long been considered the top prize and most elusive figure in an extensive, ongoing drug war that has left tens of thousands of Mexicans dead.
Guzman led the Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful, richest and oldest of the drug-trafficking networks in Mexico. The group is responsible for the shipment of tons of cocaine and marijuana to the U.S.
The senior official said Guzman was captured early Saturday in the Sinaloa city of Mazatlan and was being transported to Mexico City. No shots were fired in the capture, the source said, which was based on information from an informant.
In recent days, the Mexican marines have been raiding numerous properties in Sinaloa belonging to close associates of Guzman.
Guzman was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 but escaped from prison in 2001 and has been on the lam ever since.

wow

Story on the Sinaloa cartel's start in Chicago in the 90s:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/25849267-418/drug-cartels-the-doctor-helped-run-chicago-operation.html

this has been all over the news lately. seems like people are finally starting to sort of understand/care about how the international drug trade has operated for the last bazumpteen years?

For a good primer, try this radio series. The text that accompanies the segment pretty much says it all
http://revealradio.org/tracing-chicagos-heroin-supply-chain/

Tracing Chicago’s heroin supply chain

Ever wondered how heavy narcotics such as heroin make it to America’s streets? Where it comes from, how it’s distributed and who it hurts?

That was the focus of a yearlong investigation by WBEZ and the Chicago Reader, which tracked the heroin supply chain from Mexico to Chicago and across the Midwest.

In our feature segment on “Reveal,” reporters Chip Mitchell and Natalie Moore explain the economics behind the heroin resurgence and paint a detailed picture of how the drugs end up in American communities.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Sinaloa cartel is responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the narcotics moving through Chicago. On Feb. 22, its leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was arrested in Mexico.

Explore the full series from WBEZ and the Chicago Reader here.

The zetas' IT man:

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/radio-tecnico-how-zetas-cartel-took-over-mexico-walkie-talkies

I don't know what to say about this other than it's awful and upsetting

https://news.vice.com/article/how-a-mexican-cartel-demolished-a-town-incinerated-hundreds-of-victims-and-got-away-with-it?utm_source=vicenewsfb

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/10/missing-mexico-students-mass-graves

Mass graves of protesting students, 26 police officers now in custody on suspicion of murder.

yeah i heard about that on the radio on my way to class, where i handed back a beautifully written student paper about her family ranch in guerrero.
horrible

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-drug-cartel-killed-journalist-posted-pictures-dead-body-twitter-account-article-1.1984657

The mayor of Iguala has been charged with six murders connected to the student protests.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/14/mexican-mayor-jose-luis-abarca-charged-murder-students

He can probably expect another forty three to be added to that at some point. The theory is that he feared students would try to disrupt an event promoting his wife's political career so he colluded with the police and one of the cartels to have them kidnapped and killed. She has strong ties to the Beltran Levya group and appears to have been running her own gang in the city.

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/a-country-disappeared/

At least 60,000 people have died since Calderón had taken office in 2006, and around 22,000 are presumed missing. The government stopped releasing figures in 2011 and put a 30-year lock on them, meaning that we’d never really be sure what the toll was.

From Al-Jazeera US: Mexican drug cartels are worse than ISIL: Western obsession with the Islamic State is fueled more by bigotry than any genuine assessment of risk or atrocities

i watched the 48 hrs on this dude, p interesting

http://www.mexicogulfreporter.com/2014/11/bruce-beresford-redmans-prison-diary.html?spref=tw

conditions cant be that bad, hes reading david foster wallace

http://i.imgur.com/zi45joB.jpg

id say his case should be the next serial but seems like mexican authorities destroyed most evidence altogether

el chapo -- arrested! http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-mexico-drug-arrest-20140222,0,4503693.story#axzz2u4Q6KWth

MEXICO CITY -- Joaquin Guzman, "El Chapo," the most wanted drug lord in Mexico and a multibillionaire fugitive, has been captured, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.
Few details were available. But Guzman has long been considered the top prize and most elusive figure in an extensive, ongoing drug war that has left tens of thousands of Mexicans dead.
Guzman led the Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful, richest and oldest of the drug-trafficking networks in Mexico. The group is responsible for the shipment of tons of cocaine and marijuana to the U.S.
The senior official said Guzman was captured early Saturday in the Sinaloa city of Mazatlan and was being transported to Mexico City. No shots were fired in the capture, the source said, which was based on information from an informant.
In recent days, the Mexican marines have been raiding numerous properties in Sinaloa belonging to close associates of Guzman.
Guzman was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 but escaped from prison in 2001 and has been on the lam ever since

Escaped again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-33497301

Reading Don Winslow's novel The Cartel right now - he's the author of Savages (along with many other books) but this one is much broader in scope and much less pulpy, and is dedicated to dozens of journalists who've been murdered covering the drug war. I guess I'd compare it to James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere in the way it blends fiction and real events, changes names but leaves it pretty obvious who they're based on, etc. A very interesting book.

read Murder City and then El Sicario last week, kind of in a spin about them now, to put together some reflection on what Bowden means to say that this is "the future". I think he means something about :

the corruption of legal authority by money

the erosion of "natural" limits on violence
by drugs

the desire to be gods

but it's neither one of these nor the other but rather all together.

& the erosion of limits on violence is key ; because you see men who are not psychopaths in any usual sense become professional killers, for whom it seems that the first kill is the crucial one, because to do so breaks a taboo that then permits the killer great power thereafter, power that is otherwise thought beyond reach. and it makes you like a god. I've been reading books on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism prior to this & there too you see torrents of violence following the first kills by "ordinary men".

I can't get my head around this yet.

I also read murder city and what struck me most was the hopelessness for some people in certain areas who could be killed by the cartels, the police, or the army, and that all three parties have elements that are either in cahoots with one another or at war with one another. And if you need help, you don't know if the police or army sent to help will protect you or hand you over to people who will kill you. also spooked by those Juarez party houses where they'd just torture and kill people and bury them in the backyards. And they're just houses in a regular subdivision.

Just the idea that the violence is coming from all elements of power directed at everyone almost arbitrarily, like the story he tells about the massacre at the rehab clinic.

has anyone seen "cartel land"

it looks really interesting but i'm a little suspicious of bigelow's involvement (in that it might spend a little too much time on the macho vigilantes bringing evil to justice and not, like, on the completely horrifying effects the war has had on the general populace)

might be concern-trolling myself, tho

Chapo vs. ISIS, coming soon from Electronic Arts:

http://nypost.com/2015/12/10/el-chapo-tells-isis-his-men-will-destroy-them/

probably the closest we'll ever get to a real life Alien vs Predator tbh

I think the proper term is "undocumented immigrant."

Censor or Die: The Death of Mexican News In the Age of Drug Cartels

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gunmen-kill-mexico-mayor-gisela-mota-one-day-after-taking-n489206?cid=sm_tw&hootPostID=9e9b4efb61ffd9eb2a5c2b0e4bf902d5

Also, the U.S. consulate in Tijuana was set on fire:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jan/04/fire-consulate-tijuana-deliberately-set/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhFWHJsgkc
the raid which recaptured El Chapo

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/03/americas/mexico-baby-murdered/index.html

This stupid fucking world we live in. Jesus Christ.

HE GONE (again)

or maybe not? no reportage on it beyond the daily mail and a shitload of tweets, could be bullshit

I presume you refer to Joaquin Guzman, aka "El Chapo." Enough money buys one a lot of things.

i do indeed refer to joaquin guzman loera. not seeing any actual news outlets report that he's escaped tho

it wouldnt surprise me in the fuckin slightest, seeing as he a. continues to get government help regardless of who's in los pinos and b. is on the verge of being extradited to the U.S.

Looks like someone got in before that wall got built.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/world/el-chapo-extradited-mexico.html?_r=0

for a while there was a lot of news about cartel violence in mexico

has it slowed down? did we stop caring? or did all the journalists get killed?

and a few minutes googling seems to indicate, no, the violence hasn't slowed down

also that, like this thread, the drug war in mexico is officially 10 years old

this was the big scuttlebutt at my workplace yesterday

https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea

^^Amazing level of reporting on the Allende massacre.

It was a very hard but necessary read, that.