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Mexican Drug War

Journalist Anabel Hernandez poses for a photo on a red background.

Book names those allegedly responsible for disappearance of 43 students in Mexico

Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez has spent years investigating the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico. Hernandez believes the Army — who was helping the local drug lord — thought the students had seen too much.

A man and a woman fill out forms with Mexican passports in the frame

Nixon and Reagan tried closing the border to pressure Mexico — here’s what happened

Immigration
"El Chapo" in blue uniform stands near police.

‘El Chapo’ trial puts drug lord’s love life, business dealings on full display

Justice
Vicente Zambada Niebla takes the witness box, at the trial of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, right, in this courtroom sketch

El Chapo trial shows why a wall won’t stop drugs from crossing the US-Mexico border

A poppy farmer stands in front of a poppy plant and talks with a mic in his hand.

Could decriminalization of Mexico’s poppy farms reduce drug-cartel violence?

Conflict & Justice
Three police stand inside the courthouse in Brooklyn

Drug lord ‘El Chapo’ from Mexico begins his trial in the US

Justice

As the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Guzmán, 61, directed massive shipments of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine bound for the United States. He faces 17 criminal counts and a potential life sentence if convicted.

authorities dismantle a meth lab in mexico

Joint US-Mexico effort to focus on drug kingpins’ financial infrastructure

Conflict & Justice

This new joint effort between the US and Mexico also doubles down on the controversial kingpin strategy — the idea that you break up cartels by targeting their leaders.

family members carry the coffin in a murdered political candidate in mexico

Unprecedented wave of political violence rocks Mexico

Media

As Mexico prepares for elections, 113 political candidates and eight journalists have been murdered since the election process began last September. According to a recent report on political violence, 72 percent of the violence targeted opposition candidates.

Photographers are huddled around a protest on the sidewalk. There are newspapers laid out on the sidewalk, drizzled in red paint to look like blood, while a person wearing a skull mask pretends to lay dead next to them. The words "No mas" are written.

Officials: 2017 was Mexico’s most violent year in two decades

Conflict

More than 23,000 were murdered in 2017 and more than 190,000 have died in drug-related violence in the last decade as officials battle cartels.

Recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers at the hangar belonging to the office of the Attorney General in Mexico City

Mexico just extradited drug lord ‘El Chapo’ to the US

Justice

Joaquín Guzmán — whose nickname “El Chapo” means “shorty” — is the most recognized figure of Mexico’s drug trade and faces a slew of charges in several US jurisdictions of drug distribution, murder and money laundering.