In Gomorrah, I tried to use Naples as a lens to describe the world because the power dynamics are identical everywhere. With ZeroZeroZero, I tried to recount the world through cocaine trafficking: the place of origin, the drug’s route, the people who produce, transport, hide, and sell it. And then, the revenues: where they come from and, above all, where they end up. Everything that has to do with coke has to do with us, even those who don’t use it, because the capital that comes from drug trafficking has literally infested the legal economy. My daily life is the negation of life itself. I can’t go out freely. I can’t decide suddenly to go out, but only after having coordinated the schedule and routes with my bodyguards.
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My life is missing that which makes life interesting: chance. Nothing happens to me that wasn’t planned beforehand. Additionally, my life exhibits a strange form of schizophrenia: I go from being closed behind four walls (military police barracks, hotel rooms, or safe houses) to maximum visibility at public events or on television programs in which I speak to millions of viewers.
Mexico is the heart of the global drug trade. While in the past, Colombia was considered the epicenter of drug trafficking, in the 1990s Mexico took on an ever-growing role, caused by the fall of the major Colombian cartels (the Medellin and Cali cartels). In just a few years the Mexicans moved from being simple transporters for the Colombians to being major distributors of Colombian coke in the U.S. As in other types of business—for example, in oil—the distributor, not the manufacturer, is the one who achieves higher margins and becomes king of the industry. It’s also important to remember that the border between Mexico and the United States is 3,145 km (1,954 miles) long and that the United States consumes 25 percent of drugs worldwide. These two facts have made Mexico the main world power for drug trafficking.
Today, the only rule is that there are no rules. Cruelty is flaunted. Violence is a showcase, a media event. Los Zetas have understood the importance of the web to their success: they often record killings, tortures, decapitations (their signature method) and upload the videos on YouTube.
The body of one’s enemy is spared no humiliation because it serves as a warning for the living. Sometimes the genitals of the victims are cut off and put in their mouths. One time the face of a man was even removed and sewn onto a soccer ball.
Every foot of the 1,954 mile long border can be used to pass drugs, whether above or underground. There are simpler methods, such as hiding the cocaine underneath a false bottom in the trunk of a vehicle or under the gas tank.
The checkpoints are stimulants for the imagination of narcos. In recent years, they have even constructed drug-catapults that launch bricks of drugs over the border. Or they use hang-gliders.
They attach a kind of metal cage containing bricks of cocaine underneath the pilot’s seat. Once they’ve entered U.S. Airspace, the cage is released from the aircraft and falls to the ground. Then the hang-glider returns to Mexico.
It’s possible to transport between 70 and 120 kilos (154 to 265 pounds) of drugs that way.