Editor's note: Anabel Hernandez is an investigative journalist from Mexico. An English translation of her book "Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers,"
has just been published. Hernandez has worked on national dailies
including Reforma, Milenio, El Universal and its investigative
supplement La Revista. She currently contributes to the online news site
Reporte Indigo. In 2012, Hernandez was awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom award in recognition of her work exposing drug cartels.
Since December 2010, I have lived with death threats because I have
documented and revealed corruption at the highest levels in the Mexican
government. My family has been attacked, I have to live with bodyguards
and some of my sources have been killed or are in jail.
But my case is just one of many.
A large number of journalists
and human rights activists -- as well as those who denounce corruption
in Mexico -- receive similar threats or have been killed. And the
biggest danger is not in fact the drug cartels, but rather the
government and business officials that work for them and fear exposure.
My new book
"Narcoland"
is the result of five grueling years of research. Over this time I
gradually became immersed in a shadowy world full of traps, lies,
betrayals, and contradictions.
The data I present is
backed up by numerous legal documents, and the testimony of many who
witnessed the events first-hand. I met people involved in the Mexican
drug cartels and spoke to police and army officers, U.S. government
officials, professional hit men, and priests -- figures who know the
drug trade inside out. From this I found complicity at the heart of
Mexican government, business, police and drug cartels.
The worst, and most
violent, face of corruption in Mexico is drug trafficking -- an industry
that is estimated to have left more than 60,000 people dead, and more
than 26,000 missing in the last six years. And things are getting worse.
Between January and July this year it is estimated that 10,000 people
in Mexico have died at the hands of the drug cartels.
The business of
producing, trafficking and selling illicit drugs has become increasingly
attractive to people around the world -- a lucrative market considering
that consumption is increasing globally. Mexico is now the world's
second largest cultivator of opium poppy and,
according to the CIA Factbook, in 2007 was the largest foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine to the U.S. market.
The story of how JoaquÃn
"El Chapo" Guzmán Loera -- a man widely considered as the most powerful
drug trafficker in the world -- became a great drug baron, the king of
betrayal and bribery, and the boss of top Federal Police commanders, is
intimately linked to a process of decay in Mexico where two factors are
constant: corruption, and an unbridled ambition for money and power.
I read avidly the
thousands of pages of evidence in the case of El Chapo's "escape" from
jail. Through dozens of statements given by cooks, laundry workers,
inmates, detention officers, and prison police commanders it was
confirmed to me that in 2001 El Chapo did not escape from Puente Grande
in that famous laundry cart: instead, high-ranking officials took him
out, disguised as a policeman.
Semi-illiterate peasants
like El PrÃncipe, Don Neto, El Azul, El Mayo, and El Chapo would not
have got far without the collusion of businessmen, politicians, and
policemen, and all those who exercise everyday power from behind a false
halo of legality.
We see their faces all
the time, not in the mug shots of most wanted felons put out by the
Attorney General's Office, but in the front-page stories, business
sections, and society columns of the main papers. All these are the true
godfathers of Narcoland, the true lords of the drug world.
Currently, all the old
rules governing relations between the drug barons and the centers of
economic and political power have broken down. The drug traffickers
impose their own law. The businessmen who launder their money are their
partners, while some local and federal officials are viewed as employees
to be paid off in advance, for example by financing their political
campaigns.
The culture of terror
encouraged by the criminal gangs through their grotesque violence
produces a paralyzing fear at all levels of society.
Finishing this book
demanded a constant battle against such fear. They have tried to
convince us that the drug barons and their cronies are immovable and
untouchable, but this book offers a modest demonstration of the
contrary.
As citizens or as
journalists, we must never allow the state and the authorities to give
up on their duty to provide security, and simply hand the country over
to an outlaw network made up of drug traffickers, businessmen, and
politicians.
Since its publication in
Mexico, "Narcoland" has sold more than 200,000 copies -- astounding in a
country with high levels of poverty and incredibly low levels of
literacy compared to the American-European book-buying market
It seems to me that the
tide of public opinion is changing in Mexico; people no longer accept
the view that the Mexican government are at war with the drug cartels.
The levels of violence, murder, trafficking, child pornography and kidnapping in Mexico at the moment is simply catastrophic.
In line with the
increase in drug consumption across the world, the cocaine business has
become more powerful than anyone could have imagined. The money created
from this has allowed drug cartel criminals to buy whatever they want --
whether that is people, governments, police, land or impunity.
This corruption spreads across the world; Europe has become on the biggest importers of Mexico's trafficked drugs.
It is important that
people in London, Paris or New York understand that when they buy a gram
of cocaine they have blood on their hands.
The world needs to work
with Mexico to combat this 21st-century form of warfare; fight against
drug trafficking and organized crime has to be global.
* In
response to CNN's request for comment on this article, the Embassy of
Mexico to the U.K. said the Mexican government was fully committed to
upholding the rule of law.
"President Enrique Peña Nieto prioritizes a Mexico in peace as the first national goal," the embassy said.
"The National
Security Strategy has been raised to the level of State Policy, and is
underpinned by a multidimensional security focus that puts the wellbeing
of citizens and the forefront of its concerns, by emphasizing
prevention and the reduction of crime.
"This new focus is
not only designed to enforce the law and, if need be, for the State to
make use of force in order to guarantee safety, but also to counteract
the vulnerabilities created by consumption and violence through the
implementation of social programs."
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