How does cartel violence impact young people in Mexico?

Pipsy podcast on suurin jälkeen. Hey, I'm Mickira. This is what in the world from the BBC World Service. We're talking about the killing of Mexico's most wanted man, El Mencho. He was the longtime leader of a powerful cartel group in Mexico named the Heliscoe New Generation cartel. His death has triggered a violent backlash across 20 Mexican states. It's also been bringing back wider conversations around cartel violence in Mexican society. Not a new topic, but something which is a very real fear in the minds of many Mexicans. We're going to hear from our reporter Laura on how the threat of cartel violence affects young Mexicans. I'm from the North, from Monterey, and I grew up knowing that there was specific WhatsApp groups that I needed to be a part of. That would tell me if there was a drive-by shooting in a particular part of town, or if I should not go to another part of town because people had heard gunshots. You live, you learn to adapt your reality to that. And more from Laura soon, but first let's focus on what we know about the killing of El Mencho and what might happen next. Jack Burgess is a BBC reporter and he's been covering this for the BBC website. So Jack, tell us a bit about El Mencho. El Mencho, his real name was Nimesio Ruben or Segueros Savantes, was Mexico's most wanted man. He was head of one of Mexico's most feared and dangerous cartels, that's the Hylisco new generation cartel called CJNG for short. El Mencho's rise to the top of the cartel was achieved through aggression, ambition, brutality and ruthlessness. The CJNG is one of the country's most dominant crime groups. The Hylisco cartel expanded rapidly across Mexico since it was formed in about 2010. And it's strongest in the west of the country, but also has a presence across Mexico. So the Hylisco cartel gained notoriety for a series of attacks over the years on security forces and public officials. El Mencho died while in custody on Sunday after being seriously injured in a firefight between his bodyguards and military commando's sense to capture him. Mexico's security minister said El Mencho was seized by the military on Sunday after they tracked down a romantic partner he was meeting. And he died while the military was transporting him from the town of Tupalpub to the capital Mexico City. And cartels are known for wanting revenge, especially when they've been attacked. How have they responded to this? So the Hylisco cartel has unleashed a wave of violence across Mexico. 20 Mexican states have seen violence in retaliation for the killing of the cartel's leader. The cartel set buses on fire, blocked roads, set of light dozens of banks and local businesses such as pharmacies. And they've also been clashes between cartel members and Mexico's national guard in the street. When it comes to Mexico's government, how have they responded to what's been going on in their arrest? Well, Mexico's government has sent thousands of soldiers to the west of the country to stop the violence. The government has said nearly 10,000 troops have been deployed overall since Sunday. And Mexico's president, Claudia Shainbaum, has said her priority is to guarantee the peace and security across the country. Jack, thank you so much. Oh no worries. Yeah, thanks for chatting. Okay, so what about the timing of this? Why take out El Mancho now? Well, we don't know if the Mexican government received any new intelligence to help their operation. But we do know that President Trump has threatened to target drug cartels in Mexico while he's been in office. Some say that he's been putting pressure on Mexico's president, Claudia Shainbaum. But the truth is, we're not totally clear why Mexican security forces have decided to make this move now. And while there's definitely been a rise in violence since El Mancho's death, cartel violence isn't new. It's a reality that Mexicans, including young Mexicans, have been dealing with for a long time. So let's find out a bit more. We've got the BBC's Laura Garcia on the line. Hey, Laura. Hey. So, Laura, when we're talking about cartels, how do they recruit young people into their organization? The people who study the motivations or kind of do surveys with the young people who end up working in cartels. Kind of say there's three reasons. The first one is cartels offer kind of money in places where maybe there's not that many jobs. The second is that they offer networks of companionship and belonging. So you get to be part of a group, right? As a teenager, that's incredibly important, especially if your friends are joining or you see people around you joining. And the third one is the status that comes with it from money and from belonging to these organizations that have a real presence in some of these spaces. Now, that doesn't mean that everybody joins willingly. There's definitely also part of the cartels that coerce people into it. So if you were 15 and you get told either you do this thing, I'm asking you to do where I'm going to go hurt your family and you live in a quite rural area where you really can't turn to the police. You really don't have a choice. And the glamour, I'm going to say it like I'm quotes. The glamour of joining into these groups of kind of having guns and money and cars is part of the message. And you see it on TikTok all the time as well. These young people who film their lives and kind of use music and filters and emojis to kind of tell the story of what a great time they're having. It's the message that others will see and then think, "Oh, maybe I want a little bit of that." Yeah, and so what type of person are they targeting? Do we know? Again, hard question to answer. Yeah. But what the staff sent to show is that it's young kids in these rural communities where there's less protection from them, where there's less presence of the state. Tens to be kids from kind of more underrepresented or kind of indigenous backgrounds or rural communities or more marginalized communities, because Mexican law protects you in a different way up until the age of 18. So it means that you will get less jail time, you'll get judged less harshly. So in a way that costs for some of these kids is doing things that are legal, seems a little bit less. There's like an NGO called the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico and they kind of estimate that between 145,000 and 250,000, so that's a quarter of a million kids and teenagers are at risk of being either recruited or joining these groups. They target both men and women. There's no difference. And what they tend to do is then send them in to kind of middle class or upper middle class parts of where they live to sell drugs. And then they go back and they bring that money to their communities. So we're building up a picture of the recruitment of these groups. But I guess the other side is how cartels actually keep these young people in their organization after they've joined. Well, yeah, no, just put it like it's not like a gym membership that you can opt in and out. Once you're in a cartel, you are part of a structure and you can also become a risk if you leave, right? So the idea of how do cartels keep anybody that joins them engaged is a combination of what we've been talking about. So it's the money, it's the status, it's protection that they can offer to you and your family or the risk that you would put yourself and your family in if you leave. And that is a really powerful motivator for people to stay in. Yeah, and a lot of people who live outside of Mexico might only know of cartels from TV shows like Ozark, Narcos. How accurate are those depictions of cartel life, though? Well, for starters, Mexico does not have a Sepia filter on it all the time. Like you might see in some of these TV shows. And again, hard to say because they're they're really hard groups to research. What I can't tell you is what the experience feels like for someone who lives in Mexico. So I'm from the north from Monterey and between kind of 2007 and 2010. We had really bad drug related violence. The kind of stuff like you saw on TV today, like I grew up knowing that there was specific WhatsApp groups that I needed to be a part of that would tell me if there was a drive-by shooting in a particular part of town. Or if I should not go to another part of town because because there people had heard gunshots. And then it also feels incredibly normal. So it's not in television and in films you see just the intense bits of the fighting and the violence, which is 100% still there. But around that a lot of life happens. And people adapt in incredible ways in the places where you see some of these most violent scenes on television. I'm in a couple of WhatsApp groups with family members and people who live close to the area. What happens is organizing people organize people come up with plans to look after each other to look after their community and To find ways to live our long side and around All of this violence young people in the same way they'll adapt how they go out or how they communicate or what kind of symbols You use to make sure that everybody's safe for a while when I was at uni Twitter was huge So X which was called Twitter back then there was a specific account that we all followed to know what was going on Cartels impact every single aspect of Mexican life whether you're 65 or you're 13 They have reshaped the fabric of our country whether it's through the ways that the government decides to implement security plans and put more Police officers on the street or From the kind of stuff that we've been seeing on TV now with kind of violent scenes. It's it's low-key In behind of everyone's minds because it's also linked to one of Mexico's other's biggest problem Which is the big the problem of the people who have been disappeared There's over a hundred thousand people that we don't know where they are They're probably have been taken either by kind of armed groups or the cartels or Luster lives and then kind of an encounter between the government and any of these groups But there are no answers so this incredible pain and the scars that Mexico carries they're both super linked Narco violins and Narco culture and the effects have obviously shaped Mexico But it's also an incredibly vast rich country filled of people who are nice and who just want to get their life together and And kind of see pass and end that we want people to see us pass this and this is huge with the World Cup coming up Because a couple of the places in Mexico where the matches are going to be played can also be hot spots for drug violins Laura, thank you so much for filling us in and all that yeah my pleasure Laura mentioned the World Cup there that scheduled to happen later this summer across Canada the US and Mexico Fans from around the world have already planned their trips, but are now watching this violence play out So how is that affecting them? We reached out to our sports reporter Daniel Austin to find out It's impossible to say right now if the cartel unrest will impact the World Cup But it certainly has raised levels of concern because the the main region in which we've seen these kind of violent scenes of Shootouts and vehicle bannings road blockages etc is Heliskow which is in the west of the country Guadalajara one of the host cities is in that region some domestic football fixtures are already got to be cancelled there because of what's happening I think certainly people are taking security into account and away and go it up and off a lot more than I've maybe come across in previous tournaments whether that be by speaking to people in a professional capacity or just having friends or acquaintances They're planning to go over to follow teams, but it seems like all of the authorities the different levels of government in Mexico FIFA a kind of waiting to see how Forcible and how long this response is before maybe adapting any plans And that's almost it from us remember you can DM us on Instagram at anytime at BBC What's in the World over there We're on the BBC World Service YouTube channel every Tuesday and Thursday Two so check us out over there. Thank you to all of you who've been commenting But for now I'm it Kira this is What's in the World from the BBC World Service and I'll see you next time On big lives we take a single cultural icon people like Jane Fonda George Michael little Richard and we pull apart the story behind the image And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archives discovering forgotten interviews that changed exactly how we see these giants of our culture We're here for the messy the brilliant the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi and Kai Wright and this is big lives Listen to big lives wherever you get your podcasts