Transcript
BBC Narrator (0:00)
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
Peloton Advertiser (0:05)
Welcome to your Peloton Pilates era. Built on precision, backed by results and trusted by over 2 million members. Experienced instructors with true Pilates expertise, offering classes for every level from foundational to powerfully challenging. Choose from 10 to 45 minute sessions with little to no equipment, anytime, anywhere and with the cross training swivel screen, you can move seamlessly from cardio to mat press Pilates Small moves, big impact. Find out more@onepelaton.com Pilates this is the new Weight Watchers.
Weight Watchers Advertiser (0:39)
It works for members like Jojo, who's learning simple, healthy habits, Sharia, who's making progress with meds, and Kim, who still gets to eat what she loves. For over 60 years, we've helped millions of members find what works for them. Now it's your turn. Watch your life open up. Watch your story shift. Watch what you're capable of. Watch it work. Get started today@weightwatchers.com
Quentin Somerville (1:08)
hello. Today, Donald Trump strikes a triumphant tone in his State of the Union speech. But are Republican voters convinced? Russian soldiers share their stories from the front line in the war in Ukraine and the consequences for those who defy orders. And we're in Benin in West Africa, traveling on a slow boat down the Black River. But first, Jalisco's state in Mexico was rocked by a violent rampage this week after the drug lord El Mencho died following a firefight between his bodyguards and Mexican military commandos. As Mexico's most wanted man, he was leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, and his death fuelled retaliatory attacks by cartel members across the country. It's evidence of the challenges facing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as she vows to take on the country's biggest criminal gangs. Quentin Somerville reports on the disturbingly violent fallout of this battle following the earlier capture of another major kingpin from the rival Sinaloa cartel.
Quentin Somerville (2:17)
It was weeks before the capture of Nomisio El Mencho Oceguera Cervantes, Mexico's most wanted drugs kingpin. Or I asked the country's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, how she would defeat the cartels. Intelligence. Lots of intelligence, she said confidently from the stage in her regular press briefing in Mexico City. What is clear is that confrontation leads nowhere, she said. Direct confrontation leads nowhere. It is about arrests, arrests, arrests, and addressing the root cause. And sure enough, it was a smart intel operation that led to the capture of Mr. Oseguera, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the world's biggest criminal gangs the cartel split from the notorious Sinaloa cartel some 15 years ago, and the two have battled, cooperated and profited from the illegal trade of fentanyl, methamphetamine and inhuman trafficking. It was Mr. Oseguera's lover that was his undoing. Mexican intelligence officials said she led them to his hideout, the cartel stronghold of Jalisco State. Sometime after she left, Mexican special forces moved in and in an ensuing gun battle, the crime boss was captured while being transported to Mexico City. He died. The group's power was on full display in the aftermath. Violence erupted in Jalisco's capital, Guadalajara, and spread throughout the country before the government was able to bring it under control. Despite President Scheinbaum's reply, the Mexican State is now in direct confrontation with two of the world's most powerful drugs gangs, Jalisco, New Generation and the Sinaloa Cartel. But will decapitating the Jalisco Cartel bring about its end? And will it stop the violence? The problem in Mexico is when you cut off the head of the snake, you're often left only with more snakes. That's the case in Sinaloa. I traveled to the state late last month. I thought I knew all there was to know about violence until I went to Culiacan. Sinaloa's capital city is a prosperous place with fancy car dealerships, well tended parks and high end shopping malls. It was by the steps of one of those malls that early one chilly morning, a man's body had been dumped. I was some distance away and even from there it was clear he died a touch terrible death. It looked as if he'd been tortured. His body was covered in wounds, but still I couldn't make sense of the scene. So I zoomed in with my camera and even then my brain struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. The man's skull had been flayed and the dismembered pieces placed on his corpse along with his eyes. The police were there and they lifted a sign covering his body. It was from one faction of the Sinaloa cartel to another, declaring the man a traitor and warning that his associates would be next. The following day, by a main road heading out of the city, a nearly identical dismemberment. And shortly after, a body dumped by some newly built houses. The day before, a 16 year old boy was shot dead, his feet still on the pedals of his bike where he fell, and as many as a dozen bullets were fired into him at close range. There were other murders too. Too many for me to attend. At each Incident, I'd meet Ernesto Martinez, a Veteran crime reporter, 27 years on the job. He says they average about six homicides a day in Culiacan. Look, we're in the economic heart of Culiacan. Look at the tall buildings, he said. Near the man's corpse, by the steps of the shopping mall, federal troops, soldiers and marines stood armed and watchful around the crime scene. This area should be the most secure, said Ernesto. But the authorities can't handle the violence. That's why it's called organised crime, because they're more organized than the authorities. The Sinaloa cartel is tearing itself apart after the son of one of its founders betrayed another. The removal of that cartel leader, Ismail El Mayo Zambada, who is now in prison in the us, has wrought mayhem across Sinaloa and provides a warning of the dangers facing the country. Later, I sat down with some cartel members to try to understand how their civil war might end. I've met traffickers before, and these men conform to type. Heavily armed, amoral, vicious criminals capable of the kind of horrors I'd seen all week in Culiacan. But something struck me afterwards. They lacked the swagger I'd seen before. They were worried about the future. They said they wanted government forces to leave Sinaloa so they could fight it out with their rivals in the cartel. And whomever was left standing would win control of an illegal drugs business worth billions. Imagine the bloodbath if they got their wish. And this is the danger for Mexico and Jalisco too. When cartels fragment, when there is a power struggle, the violence increases exponentially. For middle ranking cartel members like the men I met, it is a fight to the death. And anyone who gets in their way is expendable. When I wasn't visiting crime scenes, I spent most of my time with two volunteer paramedics. Julio Cesar Vega, who's 28, and Hector Torres, who's 53 years old. Julio began the volunteer service 10 years ago when he was just 18. The two men and a handful of young women respond immediately whenever they hear of another cartel shooting. They say their callouts have increased 73% in the last year. In such dismal circumstances, I could only admire their dedication and selflessness. And their bravery. Sometimes cartel members return to the scene to finish the job. If their target was merely injured, they're usually the first medics on the scene. Fast and furious, Culiocan Ictor joked as we sped to an incident downtown, their ambulance siren blaring as we weaved through traffic at speed. And nearly all the call outs. There's little for them to do beyond check vital signs and place a blanket over a corpse the cartels rarely miss. When we arrived at that day's shooting, two men were badly wounded, bleeding out on the pavement. One was screaming and the other wasn't responding. He was critically injured. It was the first time that week, despite attending the aftermath of several shootings, that we'd come across anyone still alive. The two men survived, and Hector said, removing his bloody blue medical gloves, that in fact they were the first still breathing victims they'd treated since November. The fear is everywhere. The fear is constant, the paramedic told me. But so too, is heartbreak. Thousands have been disappeared in Culiacan. Serencio Umberto was a calm and kind man, not yet 30 when he disappeared. His handsome face stares back at me from the white T shirt his mother, Maria Isabel, wears in his memory. She's part of a group called Mothers Fighting Back, which searches for missing family members. I joined them in some waste ground at a town not far from Culiacan. Buzzards flew overhead. They had long iron probes, which they forced deep into the ground, wherever they think a body may have been buried. The women, all mothers, sisters, daughters of the disappeared, raised the iron pole to their noses, alert to the telltale smell of decomposition. When her son went missing, Maria Isabel quit her job and joined the group to search for him. And eventually Crescenzio's dismembered body was found. God returned him to me, she said tearfully. My heart broke when I saw my son's skull, his ribs, his bones. I had no words. Honestly, I don't wish this on other mothers. I don't wish this on anyone. Whatever they did to my son, I know karma exists. Sooner or later, they will pay for it. My son did not deserve a death like that. That's the truth. There are two wars going on in Mexico. The one with the cartels and the state's fight against the drug traffickers producing drugs and transporting them from South America to the United States and far beyond. But there's another consideration, too. The United States, where most of the toxic fentanyl the cartels produce ends up, has threatened military action against Mexico if it doesn't act against the criminals. The disintegration of the Sinaloa cartel would be a victory for the government and for mothers like Maria Isabel. But she, like others, is under no illusion. With so much money at stake, other traffickers will likely take their place. The capture of El Mencho in Jalisco was a stunning achievement. But it, too comes with consequences for Mexico's drugs. Cartels are at their most dangerous, their most vicious, when they're wounded.