Ioan Grillo on Mexico’s Violent Drug Industry

The Takeaway

Since 2006, when President Felipe Calderón  declared war on Mexico’s drug cartels, 45,000 Mexicans across the republic have been disappeared, murdered, or mass-executed. Victims of this violence include journalists, over two thousand public officials, and bystanders. While drug-related activity was previously relegated to only a few Mexican states, the dramatic spread of violence – and its severity – is attributable to governmental policy north and south of the border. Ioan Grillo is a British journalist based in Mexico who’s been investigating Mexico’s drug war for ten years. His new book is called “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency.”

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