Drug cartel killers are taking a page from the marketing techniques of today’s publicity machines, “advertising” their grisly activities in messages accompanying bodies and decapitated heads.
The most recent was on a poster, found amid four severed heads along a northern Durango highway. It read, "This is a warning," and listed several Mexican police agencies and the names of some well-known drug figures. "You get what you deserve."
Ciudad Juarez, not to be outdone, announced that on the same day a placard from “La Linea” accompanied five bodies wrapped in cloth. "This is what happens to stupid traitors who take sides with Chapo Guzman," referring to Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the supposed leader of the main drug gang in adjacent Sinaloa state.
"Narco messages,” as they are called, are even played on YouTube and publicized by Mexican news reports, thus guaranteeing a wide delivery of the macabre notes to their rivals and putting Mexicans increasingly on edge.
"You didn’t see that kind of stuff 13 years ago," said a senior U.S. counter-narcotics official. "It’s more in-your-face" and savage. Authorities view the messages as a psychological tactic, similar to the kind used in wartime.
One outcome of the grisly messages could be that the cartel players are becoming more and more desperate, being forced to take progressively savage measures against their competitors. Officials also doubt the strategies will go away any time soon.
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