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The Cartel Next Door
- shady-lady 8y agoAn upvote alone doesn't do that story justice. Absolutely fantastic piece.
- chiph 8y agoTexas Monthly is really full of such writing.
- dtornabene 8y agoIt really is, going back decades.
- walterbell 8y ago> Instead, he explained the concept of plomo o plata. Literally translated as “lead or silver,” it’s a tactic employed by all manner of criminal organizations. It implies a choice, though the options are stark: accept a bribe or be killed. There's a couple of github repos of alleged iOS vulnerabilities with the same name. https://github.com/MTJailed/plataoplomo https://github.com/MTJailed/plataoplomo https://github.com/userlandkernel/plataoplomo https://github.com/userlandkernel/plataoplomo
- johntiger1 8y agoFantastically written. Couldn't stop reading til the end, although admittedly I always find the brutality of Mexican gangs fascinating to say the least
- TaylorGood 8y agoAgreed, longform journalism well-done is extremely satisfying.
- dddddaviddddd 8y agoOrganized crime tends toward brutality regardless of the country of origin.
- mc32 8y agoI think that depends on their strength vis a vis the state. The less powerful the state they operate in, the more brutal they can be. If you compare gangs in lawless lands vs gangs operating in lands with stronger gov, the ones operating in weaker states tend to be more violent because there are fewer resources to supress them. Where can you expect gangs more violent, Japan or Philipinnes? Brazil or Chile?
- x220 8y agoI would expect gangs to be more violent in the places where they are punished the same for nonviolent and violent crimes. If I'm in a gang and will go to jail for 40 years if I get caught distributing cocaine, I might as well murder if I think it will improve my position.
- mc32 8y agoIn the less governed areas there is not a "jail to go to" it's basically gang rivalry, gang ascension, descension, internal struggle for control, expanding into rival territory, etc., etc. The gangs are in full control. There is little state presence and the one that could be is often corrupted by gangs...
- x220 8y agoYes, and in America, things are still bad and gang violence accounts for a huge proportion of murders. Strong governments do not and cannot solve the problem alone.
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- dirtylowprofile 8y agoNarcos real life.
- diggerNick6771 8y agoBlack people from the hood are murdered every night in Dallas but when it happens near people with money suddenly its a Big Deal.
- _RPM 8y agoReading this makes me sick. Mexico is embedded with corruption and it will never change. Murder is culture there. What a horrible horrible place with horrible terrorists. I hope el gato gets arrested soon and goes to prison here in America to pay for his actions.
- cinquemb 8y agoWell maybe now cartels will need to launch their own satellites, and make their own hardware that computes the time it takes a signal to propagate. Wouldn't make it impossible to intercept, but would raise the costs more than calling up Google or the GPS provider and asking them to hand over the data.
- wazoox 8y agoNotice that in the US, more than 50% of murders go unresolved (for comparison, in France 9% of murders are unresolved). https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/unsolved-homicide-database/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4dfdbdb7e98a https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/...
- blattimwind 8y agoWow, that's a spectacularly bad solve rate. I'm used to ~95 % of murders getting solved.
- amrx431 8y agoCaptivating read.