In nobler times, there wasn’t just honour among thieves; besuited gangsters, freedom-fighting terrorists and even invading fascist armies would give the citizens of a town or city fair warning before they started maiming, bombing and wiping out the local population. Old-school villains and ageing counter-terrorism experts I know often speak of “putting the frighteners” on extortion victims or receiving “coded” telephone calls from the IRA: failure to comply meant “we’d have to break something” or worse.
But taking the lethal option was almost as undesired by the perpetrator as the victim. Murder has a way of redoubling the authorities’ efforts; and besides, dead men can’t pay kickbacks.
Today’s bad guy, however, leaves nothing to chance. The tripartite of gangsterism, terrorism and militarism has become a crowded market, and the art of intimidation has given way to the credo of shoot-first-don’t-even-bother-asking-questions-later.
I’ve seen this callous disregard for human life, and the blurred lines between crime, politics, warfare and “legitimate targets” in countries ranging from war-torn Sierra Leone to South Africa. But nowhere is it more abundant than in Mexico: the narco-capital of the world, a place where ingenious methods of drug trafficking and murder go hand in bloody hand.
To gauge what a typical Mexican crime reporter’s beat reads like, here’s the introduction to a recent report from Albinson Linares of current affairs show, Noticias Telemundo:
“The corpses of three people, dismembered and burned, were found in bags in Abasolo, in the state of Guanajuato, on Sept. 2. Three days later, a trans woman was murdered in the same state, and the body of a man, burned and tortured, was found hanging from a tree in Coacalco state. On Sept. 7, more than 300 migrants who had been kidnapped were rescued in Aguascalientes, and on Sept. 19, an entire family in Chihuahua was killed and an explosive package in Guanajuato caused the deaths of two men.”
And that’s a tiny sample of the 438 “acts of extreme violence” registered in Mexico that month. In this sense, then, daily life in Mexico is not a million miles away from the corrupt, ultra-violent, narco-state image of the country that Netflix has successfully cultivated via multiple documentaries, movies, series and “dope operas”. The latest, and greatest, incarnation in the streaming service’s drug dramas is season three of Narcos: Mexico — a show notorious for its “brutal” executions and murder.
But the truth is that, if anything, these shows actually downplay the violence of cartels. In Narcos, when someone gets whacked they’re dispatched like a third-rate nobody. A bit of blood splatter; a groan; next. In the real world, people who fall foul of the cartels get taken out in the most macabre of fashions: in one execution video allegedly released by the La Familia Michoacán drug cartel, a pit bull rips the man’s testicles off in full view of the camera. It’s horrific, gruesome, and in keeping with the cartels’ sadistic rule of law.
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SubscribeI was booked to fly out to Mexico last Friday for a winter/ Christmas trip around the Yucatan Peninsula. Then in the month leading up to it, started reading of all the cartel activity and shootings there- including a German and US tourist recently shot dead at a night market
So we ditched the Mexico flights, took the hit, and are now on the Costa Blanca, Spain instead. It’s a little tacky and the tacos aren’t as good, but far less chance of getting caught up in a bar where some animal shoots the place up
My wife and I went there in 1987. Tulum was beautiful but Cancun was like Benidorm. At least we were relatively safe but had no wish to return..
Yep was gonna pitch up in Tulum for while, but then a month ago a cartel opened fire there at the night market, shot a few tourists. That’s not a country I want to spend my money in right now
As they say in Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.
Where does fault lie? With the consumers or suppliers?
America’s War on Drugs has a lot to answer for.
No consumers, no suppliers.
America’s War on Drugs has a lot to answer for.
No consumers, no suppliers.
Where does fault lie? With the consumers or suppliers?
Looks like Mexico has been for a while rogues’ country on America’s doorstep.
Looks like Mexico has been for a while rogues’ country on America’s doorstep.