Narcohistory

How Mexico and the USA jointly created a 'Mexican War Against Drugs'

  • Victoria Dittmar and Mike LaSusa, “A Cold War Is Raging Inside the Sinaloa Cartel Following El Mayo’s Capture,” InSight Crime , 20/08/2024. [Link]

    “Following the capture of El Mayo, tension between the Mayiza and the Chapitos factions has worsened in Culiacán, which has historically been the epicenter of the Sinaloa Cartel’s activities. The version currently dominating international discourse — and the one believed by most sources consulted by InSight Crime — suggests that Zambada was betrayed and taken against his will to US authorities by Chapitos member Joaquín Guzmán López, also arrested that day when he turned himself in.”

    … ““There are no words for what the Chapitos did,” said one methamphetamine and fentanyl trafficker in a town outside Culiacán, also close to the dividing line, who spoke to InSight Crime on condition of anonymity. “Of course a lot of us are angry.””

  • Eyder Peralta, Steve Inskeep, “Mystery surrounds the capture of Mexican drug lord Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada,” NPR (National Public Radio) , 13/08/2024. [Link]

    Short piece, a dialogue, discussing how could it be El Mayo Zambada landed in the U.S. to be captured.

  • Abimael Chimal, “Inició operativo Énjambre´tras el hallazgo de fosas,” El Reforma, 01/12/2024. [Link]

    On November 22, 2024, the arrest of the Mayor of Almanalco, as well as part of her cabinet, took place in a coordinated action called Operación Enjambre. The capture of the chief of Security of Ixtapaluca, the director of Public Security of Amanalco, the Chief of Security of Tejupilco, the subdirector of security of Naucalpan, among other officers of high rank in the State of Mexico (that surrounds Mexico City),  and the suicide in front of the cameras of the chief of police of Texcaltitlán when he was about to be arrested, was the culmination of an investigation that started 7 months before when a clandestine mass grave was found with ten corpses that after exhumation and identifying them. The police from the State of Mexico kidnapped the victims, asked for ransom, tortured them, and murdered them.

     

  • The Cartel Project, “How Mexico's Sinaloa cartel has created a global network to rule the fentanyl trade,” The Guardian, 08/12/2020. [Link]

    The piece follows how the network of Fentanyl trade is controlled, and by whom. (?)

  • Alan Feuer, “‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Sentenced to Life in Prison, Ending Notorious Criminal Career,” The New York Times , 17/07/2019. [Link]

    At Brooklyn, El Chapo Guzmán, ‘one of the most notorious outlaws’ is found guilty: “He sent hundreds of tons of drugs to the United States from Mexico and caused the brutal deaths of dozens of people”.

  • Mica Rosenberg and Jeff Ernsthausen, “The New Effects of Immigration,” ProPublica, 21/10/2024. [Link]

    At ProPublica, the nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, reports before the election the new effects of immigration. Text and graphics are equally interesting as we must ponder immigration as part of the “war” we study.

  • Natalie Kitroeff and Robert Gebeloff. Photographs by Meridith Kohut, “The American Drug Mules Smuggling Fentanyl into the US,” The New York Times front page, 01/10/2024. [Link]

    Mexican drug cartels are turning thousands of Americans into fentanyl smugglers, sending an army of couriers who can easily cross between both countries.

  • Phineas Rueckert (from Forbidden Stories) and Nina Lakhani, “´They're culpable´: the countries supplying the guns that kill Mexico´s journalists,” The Guardian Weekly, 09/12/2020. [Link]

    “Many of the weapons used in the murders of 119 journalists were imported – and Mexico’s laws and culture make tracing them impossible”.

  • Will Dean, “The Cartel Project: Inside the ,” The Guardian , 09/12/2020. [Link]

     

    “The cartel project is a global journalistic collaboration that aims to tell the stories of many journalists murdered while investigating the narco state…” In this case, “The cartel project” special report “comes from Mexico”.

  • “Twenty-four hours of terror as cartel violence engulfs Mexican city,” The Guardian, 06/01/2023. [Link]

    “… the arrest of one of the country´s most wanted me, Ovidio Guzmán (the 32 years old son of El Chapo) sparked a day of bloodshed and chaos” in Culiacán.