Bounties Offered For Mexican Cartel Leaders

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The drug-fueled violence along the US border with Mexico–the subject of an excellent piece in the New York Times on Monday–has reached fever pitch. Since January 2008, some 7,000 people have been killed (descriptors like dissolved in acid, butchered, burned, or decapitated may be a more apt) across Mexico. There appears to be no end in sight to the violence, despite intervention by the Mexican military, among the only state entities believed to be relatively free of contamination by the cartels.

Several drug lords have been arrested in recent years, but, ironically enough, it has only accelerated the bloodletting as ambitious up-and-comers have vied for control of lucrative smuggling corridors. (This is not a new problem. Read Terrence Poppa’s narco-classic Drug Lord for an insider’s view of how the Mexican drug business functions.)

But don’t let history and the facts get in the way. The Mexican government, in advance of this week’s scheduled visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, placed bounties on 24 of the country’s most-wanted cartel leaders, offering $2 million for information leading to the capture of any one of them. Additional $1-million rewards were offered for 12 lower-level drug smugglers. It seems doubtful that this will make much difference. First, drug lords are scary guys, and the intimidation factor (something they work hard to achieve) looms large. Second, as scary as they are, historically speaking, they also invest in local communities, give to charity, and are often seen as local heroes.

The $25 million bounty on Osama Bin Laden’s head has so far gone uncollected. Should we expect these arguably more powerful and scary guys in Mexico will be sold out for less?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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