Mexican Cartel Reporters
DR | 38min
Postproduction script

00’07 Ernesto Martinez: Hello! Good afternoon! Thank you for tuning in for another transmission of the “Noticieristas”, Luis Alberto Díaz informing on the events live from Culiacan, Sinaloa… He is a person who was assassinated… and was found by a passer-by. The corpse has his hand tied in front of him and is covered by plastic.

00’46 Azucena Uresti: This morning, a group allegedly belonging to organized crime, sent a threat message to several mass media channels and especially directed to me for the job we do as reporters here in Michoacán.

00’59 Nemesio "el Mencho" Cervantes, Leader, the Jalisco-cartel: And to you Azucena Uresti, I let you know one thing, don't be an asshole and don’t be so brave because I assure you that if you do, and keep on confronting me I assure you that wherever you are, I’ll find you. 

01’22 Javier Valdez [deepfake video]: Mr. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, I’m Javier Valdez a journalist and writer. The 15^th of May of 2017 I was murdered by someone who didn’t like what I published. Regardless, I’m here today talking to you.

01’38 Ernesto: I believe that we live here in a dangerous city like Culiacán without a choice to leave so we have become used to having fear as ever present reality and learnt how to cope with it emotionally and physically.

01’54 Reporter [Lasse]: It is really crazy, if anyone can get used to stuff like this.

02’31 VO: Culiacan in Sinaloa is lawless and dangerous – according to the locals. I only dare come here when I am with Miguel. I have known him for years and have come here to meet reporters risking their life for telling what is going on.

02’48 Reporter [Lasse]: We have been in the city for two hours and are told that a person has been murdered. We are going to meet Ernesto and spend time with him the next day or two. He reports from murder scenes – he is Miguel’s colleague and they have worked together for years.

03’16 Miguel greets Ernesto

03’27 Miguel: Is that smell coming from the cadaver?

Ernesto: No. The body was just thrown here.

03’41 Lasse to Ernesto: Who is he?

Ernesto: My son.

Lasse: How old is he?

Ernesto: 17, nearly 18. My son doesn’t like coming with me to this kind of things. I had to bring him with me because we were doing some errands earlier. You don’t like this, right?

04’04 Lasse to Miguel: That is the forensic team? We’ve been to crime scenes before and one of them there were clearly some people from the bad side, some gang members showing up and looking out. It doesn’t look like anybody’s here now.

Miguel: Well we wouldn’t know. They might be hiding somewhere in the bushes. They might stop there and live. But when an execution happens in the city, sometimes they send someone out, these guys on bikes, motorcycles, to check it out, make sure the job is done. But then, they use these guys who are neighbours, but in this case it’s hard to know, we’ve seen a lot of cars driving by, we don’t know if one of them is just there checking it out.

Lasse: Why do they come here?

Miguel: To make sure the job is done. Remember, these are territories controlled by someone – so they are sending someone to check.

[Suspicious car drives by]

Lasse: Look the windows are blurred, you can’t see who is inside.

05’29 Ernesto: In this region, the cartels are no new thing. Historically there has always been organized crime groups that have climbed to power through drug traffic. I usually get up at 5am, take a shower and get ready to work. I get on air at around 6:00am or 6:20am.

06’01 VO: Ernesto grew up in Mexico’s big and poor population. He worked as a distributor for a local newspaper and drove the reporters to assignments.

06’11 Ernesto: I work approximately 12 hours daily, from 6am to 6pm. I’ll be on air with the police section as soon as the commercials are over.

Lasse: Why do you do the report from inside the car?

Ernesto: I do it in here because in the area there’re many roosters and dogs and vehicles, and the noise they make gets into the report.

06’48 Man on radio: We start our news at Culiacán with Ernesto Martínez. Good morning, what do you have for us?

Ernesto: Good morning to all! … a man found shot to death and with evidence of torture remains still without being identified. The authorities informed that the man had a tattoo of the Warner Bros on one of his arms.

07’18 VO: One of the most notorious cartel leaders, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, made Culiacan the center for Mexico’s drug trade. As described in several Netflix-serials he built the biggest drug cartel in the Western world – the Sinaloa cartel. Chapo Guzman was arrested three years ago but the cartel is still based here in Culiacan.

07’56 Ernesto: I was informed that somebody shot the cameras at the “Esquina Serdan” near the newspaper “Noroeste”. We’ll be heading there shortly, wait for us there. You need to be very careful when dealing with the cartels, they reach out to reporters to have them write about the other and blame them for something. But the other side will also reach out to the same reporter to have them write about their enemy. If you comply to their demands, a journalist becomes a spokesman of them, the thing is you can’t choose to be at peace with both sides and one side or another will consider you as enemy.

08’32 Lasse: What happened here?

Ernesto: They shot down the surveillance cameras. They were the cameras of the state’s government.

Lasse: But why?

Ernesto: It is said it’s because the criminals don’t want to be seen or recorded.

Lasse: Is it common here?

Ernesto: Yes, here it is. They have managed to destroy the majority of the camera’s by shooting at them. A few days ago, they shot down 48 cameras in only one night.

09’15 Ernesto to live-stream: Good morning. Thank you for being with us today for a new report from “Los Noticieristas” (means the journalists), Luis Alberto Díaz live from Culiacan, Sinaloa. We’re reporting the destruction of government surveillance cameras.

09’34 Ernesto in car: The most fear I have experienced in my 22 years as a reporter was on the Black Thursday event, on the 16th of October. I was caught in a gunfight, although I had been caught in many before, I had never been so exposed for so long to the gunshots.

10’00 VO: What took place in October two years ago is a dark chapter in the history of Mexico. And a symbol of the power of the cartels in some places in the country. It all started when the military arrested El Chapo Guzman’s son, Oviedo Guzman. Here, he is surrounded and taken away from a house in Culiacan. At first it looked like a triumph for Mexican authorities. But the cartel reacted by sending 800 heavily armed members to fight the military. By coincidence Ernesto drove right into the clashes and filmed it all.

11’04 Ernesto: Suddenly two trucks break through the military security perimeter and start shooting them with a caliber .50 machine gun and “cuernos de chivo” (AK-47 rifles).

[plays video of gunfire]

11’39 Ernesto: When the gunfire started here, I stepped hard on the gas so you can hear my tires squeak, I got down, but didn’t stop recording. When I got over there, I lifted my head to take a look and saw that another truck came firing from over there and so I got into the gas station. When I arrived on the other’s company vehicle there was a rain of bullets, so I ducked here and was recording live.

[footage of shoot-out]

12’28 Ernesto: When I got a chance, I got up and ran over here. Because everything was closed, I could only take cover here. We can still see the gunshot marks up there. Everywhere on the street something was happening, it was similar to the war in Iraq; cars on fire in the middle of the most important avenues, cars abandoned with the doors opened, and some with many gun shots, even people lying dead.

[news reports]

13’27 VO: Death threats and murders most often take place in Mexico’s provinces. But now, the cartels have also caught interest in the big names in Mexico’s capital.

13’42 Man: You have take everything out of your pocket, your belt.

Lasse: I’ll take the microphone off.

13’49 Lasse to camera: We need to take everything off before we can enter.

13’59 VO: Azucena Uresti is a popular radio and TV anchor. Back in August, an unusually unpleasant video went viral.

14’09 Nemesio "el Mencho" Cervantes on video: Hello and good afternoon. I’m representative of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation. I am addressing directly to the news channel “Noticias Milenio”.

14’17 VO: A man wearing a mask states he is one of Mexico’s brutal drug barons.

14’22 Nemesio "el Mencho" Cervantes on video: To you Azucena Uresti, I let you know one thing, don't be an asshole and don’t be so brave because I assure you that if you do, and keep on confronting me I assure you that wherever you are, I’ll find you.

14’40 Lasse to camera: This is what it’s like to get into a media in Mexico right now – well, we are through.

14’47 VO: Security has been heavily strengthened since the cartel video came out. Six bodyguards follow Azucena around the clock.

14’58 Lasse to camera: These are her guards, in suits – and the guy entering the elevator with us, he is armed. The mask he is wearing is typically used by security guards to hide their identity. She hasn’t arrived yet, we have been told to wait her, together with that security guy there.

15’50 Azucena Uresti: Basically, I am accompanied all the time, physical things changed in my house and always I have the presence of people from the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

16’10 Azucena: It was very surprising for me that morning when I woke up at seven in the morning, I saw many messages, I watched the video and I was very surprised because I still don’t understand the exact reason for the threat, so personal, with a first and last name, even speaking about killing me.

16’35 VO: On the video, the cartel blaims Azucena Uresti for talking positively about citizens forming security groups as protection against the cartels.

16’43 Cervantes on video: I will make you eat your words even if they accuse me of femicide because they do not know what I, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, is capable of.

16’57 Azucena: I was scared, yes. I'd be lying if I said no. Who would not be afraid to see something like that on your cell phone and feel at a total loss?

[clip of President Obrador]

17’19 Azucena: I appreciate the words of support from the President of the Republic. I appreciate the protection mechanism and that they are with me. But what about the others? What about everyone else? Those who have been killed, journalists, even politicians who refuse to co-operate with cartels.

18’05 Griselda Triana: Welcome to my home.

Lasse: Thank you.

18’11 Griselda: The home we left behind is not inhabited. It’s a house that we can no longer call home. The house is now only walls and a roof, I can’t call it my home, my home is here now. I can see that it catches your attention. Here they are, these photographs were taken three months before they killed Javier, and we were at the graduation ceremony of our daughter. I think it was one of the last pictures we took together.

19’01 VO: Griselda Triana is hiding in Mexico City – far from Culiacan where she was married and raised their children.

19’12 Griselda: Yes, Javier was very fond of coffee. When we visited his mother, the first thing she used to do was make coffee. But it was Nescafé, instant coffee.

19’31 VO: Her husband, Javier Valdez, was a journalist and an author of books about the drug cartels. Four years ago she heard from him for the last time.

19’40 Griselda: That morning was awful. Javier called me and asked me if I had made lunch, I told him I didn’t because there were leftovers. And that was the last time we talked. Later that day I received a call. They asked, is that Griselda? But in a strange voice. And crying he told me that somebody had attacked Javier with several gun shots. I told him that that was not possible because I had just talked with Javier.

21’13 Ismael Bojorquez: This is our small reception. In total we have sixty square meters.

21’19 VO: Miguel takes me to the newspaper Rio 12. Here, he worked with Javier Valdez for years.

21’25 Ismael: Cameras were put in place after Javier’s murder. I don’t know if they’re really useful, but here they are.

21’34 VO: The nine journalists killed so far in 2021 all came from small local media outlets like this one.

21’41 Ismael: This news coverage was done one week after Javier’s death. Later when the investigations started to capture the killers, we published this cover.

Lasse: Why the finger?

Ismael: He always saluted and proceeded to show his finger, it was very typical of him. I decided to use that picture as an irreverent expression against the criminals, trying to say in protest fashion that he isn’t dead. We didn’t have to use any words, the picture says it all.

22’21 Miguel: This was Javier’s office, this was his desk and where he wrote his stories.

22’30 VO: They show me Javier’s last article – he made fun of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.

22’44 Lasse: What did he write that the cartel didn’t like?

Ismael: I think it was this part which says that he was merely a petty gunman.

22’59 Miguel: The part was: “drug lord who orders ‘corridos’ [folksongs] to be written for him, cheap prop gunman…” It’s amazing that those ten words caused his death.

Lasse: Did you know that this was potentially dangerous? What were the considerations that you had at the newspaper before you printed this?

Ismael: If you refer to a man like a cheap gunman, for them it is very offensive. I believe that the main responsibility there is mine because I was the one who reviewed and made the decision to approve or not any text content.

24’03 Miguel: He was driving right here when another car just blocked him out of the blue. These two gunmen got out and Javier got out of the car, maybe he was thinking ‘these people are going to take me, they’re going to kidnap me’ or something. But instead, they just pulled the trigger and shot Javier twelve times.

24’39 Griselda: I had hopes that when I arrived at the scene, I would find him in an ambulance being treated, but it wasn’t like that. In reality there was a yellow tape and his body was covered with a blue sheet and his hat lay there. At that moment I was only thinking in my children and how I was going to tell them that their father was killed. I receive a call from my son, and he asked if it was true what happened to his father. I told my son, yes, your father has been killed. Then they were carrying Javier on the stretcher. My son asked that they didn’t take him away but I told him that he should let them because he had been too much time laying under the sun. It was his body, but no longer him. That was the most difficult part.

26’22 News report: It was a battle-zone Thursday in the city of Culiacan, Mexico, the historic homeland to the violent Sinoloa drug cartel.

26’29 VO: The President has promised to stop the violence – as did Presidents before him. But when he had Chapo Guzman’s son in custody two years ago, the cartel turned out to be in control.

26’44 Ernesto: The cartel had a very well thought out strategy, from plan A to plan Z.

[footage of attacks]

26’53 Ernesto: Their response plan included and they managed to do the following: isolate the city, attack military personal at their homes, kidnap militaries and officials and set free criminals of the prisons.

27’11 VO: On Ernesto’s recordings – negotiations between the government and a cartel with seemingly endless power can be heard. 

27’19 Radio: Let's see, Juancho and Armando, this is your responsibility and of all your miserable little government, Juancho, report quickly.

27’28 VO: Mexico is the 15th biggest economy in the world. But the day when the son of a notorious cartel leader is arrested ends like a symbol of a Mexico without law or justice.

27’46 Radio: We don’t care about your families, if you don’t let him go we’ll destroy you. We’ll attack families too.

Authorities on radio: Affirmative, yes it happened.

Radio: Affirmative, everything under control.

28’03 VO: A few hours after his arrest, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel is a free man again.

28’11 Ernesto: The armed force the cartel had was immense, so much that they managed to take down the city, they crushed the authorities and there was no rule of law.

28’23 President Obrador: I ordered the release – the price for not doing it would have been too high.

28’44 Lasse: So just like with El Chapito, El Chapo’s son was just let go. The killers of this poor guy down here are never going to hear about it.

Miguel: Never. This will remain unsolved. I can ask you to come back in five years and we can reopen all these files and nothing is going to change, this is going to be the same. I always wonder why do we do all this if nothing’s going to happen, nothing’s going to change.

Lasse: There’s so many people involved in this, journalists etc.

Miguel: What is the point. It’s a pantomime, everyone is pretending to be doing something, but they are not.

Lasse: And if you guys push your investigation too hard, you’ll be shot down.

Miguel: We’ll be the next ones lying down there.

30’03 Azucena: We have to remove this cloak of impunity, impunity in the country has to end. More than 90% of crimes against journalists and human defenders in Mexico go unpunished; more than 90%. It's crazy. We can't live like this.

30’20 Lasse: What’s the biggest story right now?

Azucena: Today the most relevant story is mayors troubled by organized crime. A local fire. Also, vigilante groups keep appearing.

30’58 Azucena on news: On Thursday we informed you about the execution in Iguala, Guerrero, at the hands of alleged members of the criminal group Los Tlacos, of at least 20 hitmen from the rival criminal group, La Bandera, formerly Guerreros Unidos.

31’11 Azucena to Lasse: Some people told me: leave your job, leave Mexico, change your home and change your profession. But I decided that that was not the way, journalists cannot do that when we have an obstacle, because then in Mexico there would be no journalism.

31’45 Lasse: This is the statue of Javier.

Miguel: The sentence says it all ‘nunca el silencio’ – never silence.

Lasse: What do you think it shows that they put it up here. There’s a lot of sympathy for him here?

Miguel: Well there’s a lot of symbolism that no journalist should be censored or should be quiet.

32’15 VO: The pressure to silence Mexico’s journalists is huge and brutal. But luckily, there is still resistance against the dark forces.

32’28 Sara Landeros: This video was done by “Propuesta Cívica” to get the attention of the Mexican government and have them bring the violence to a halt.

32’40 Javier Valdez on Deepfake video: Mr. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, I’m Javier Valdez a journalist and writer. I am not afraid because I cannot be killed twice, for that reason I’m here on behalf of the hundreds of journalists that have been murdered, missing or forced to leave.

32’58 VO: With deep fake technology, the civil rights group can reanimate murdered journalists. And make sure that the killers can’t avoid the voices of those they killed.

33’08 Sara: From the painful fact of their death we got the idea to recreate the speech of journalists that have been murdered for their profession to ones that speak up to the president.

33’22 Javier Valdez on Deepfake video: I’m not here to ask any favors to you Mr. President, I’m here to demand that you fulfill your duties. Until the crimes committed against my colleagues and me are not investigated and dealt with accordingly, we and our families will not have peace.

33’38 Griselda: There was a person who sat down and spoke as Javier. I lent Javier’s hat to help them. As the video states, Javier cannot be killed twice, but it in some way, not achieving justice for him would be like killing him twice.

34’04 Javier Valdez on Deepfake video: A country with no truth is a country with no democracy. Although you want to silence us, we will continue speaking out.

34’22 Ernesto on phone: Where? No, I haven’t seen him. Who knows what happened? Yes… I’m near the station. Bye, bye.

34’40 VO: Even if the cartels are overwhelmingly powerful in Mexico they have not yet managed to kill the free word once and for all.

34’51 Ernesto: Good morning! Did you see a dead person here? He supposedly came out of the train?

35’00 VO: Ernesto continues his work and is still covering the cartels, 12 hours a day.

35’06 Ernesto on phone: Yes, I’m at the spot, but I haven’t located him yet. They say he is here, but I can’t find him yet. Ok, bye.

35’33 Lasse reading Emmy: ‘El Chapo’s Son: The Siege of Culiacan’.

35’36 VO: For the brave, those who continue despite the danger – there are glimpses of light in the darkness.

35’45 Ernesto: This is an Emmy award for making a documentary about the escape plan of the son of El Chapo in October, 2019.

Miguel: You should exhibit it more!

Ernesto: Yes of course, I am having special place made just to exhibit it.

Miguel: Very few people in Mexico have it.

Ernesto: Yes, I believe that in Mexico there are only six. Six or seven Emmys. Yes, it’s very difficult. I believe it’s the biggest price I’ll receive in my life.

 

 

Lower thirds

Ernesto Martinez, reporter, Sinaloa 00’18, 06’16, 26’52

Azucena Uresti, reporter and anchor, El Milenio 16’25, 30’23

Nemesio "El Mencho" Cervantes, Leader, Jalisco cartel 01’01, 14’30

Javier Valdez, murdered reporter 01’25

Lasse Engelbrecht 02’49

Miguel Angel Vega, reporter 4’30, 24’09, 29’03

Video: Military 10’18

Ovidio Guzmán, Leader, Sinaloa cartel 10’40

Pictures/video: Ernesto Martinez 11’20, 27’28

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President, Mexico 17’08

Griselda Triana, widow of murdered reporter 18’35, 24’53

Javier Valdez, murdered reporter, ‘Deep fake’ manipulated video 33’24

Ismael Bojorquez, Chief Editor, Riodoce 21’52

Sara Landeros, Head of Propuesta Civica 33’12