February 28, 2013

Why Mexico's Cartels Are Unstoppable

Keegan Hamilton, The Atlantic

AP Photo

The rumor started Thursday afternoon when the newspaper Prensa Libre reported that several narcos were killed during shootout in Guatemala's remote Petén region. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said one of the corpses was "physically very similar" to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, top boss of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. Other outlets, including the unfiltered drug war diary Blog del Narco, spread the word on Twitter, piquing the interest of the international press, and sending Mexican and Guatemalan officials scrambling to confirm the powerful drug lord's purported demise. The rumor was soon thoroughly debunked. There was no shootout, let alone one that claimed the life of the modern day Pablo Escobar. (Lopez, the Interior Minister, later apologized for the "misunderstanding"...

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TAGGED: Sinaloa cartel, Mexico Drug Wars, Mexico

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