Who’s Burning Busses in Baja California?

James and Shereen are joined by Vicente Calderón @tijuanapress to discuss the narcobloqueos in Baja California and across Mexico and the broader context of the recent violence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to It Could Happen Here podcast about
how the world is falling apart and sometimes about how
people are putting it back together. What is today? It's me.
I'm James, if you haven't worked that out yet, and
I'm joined by screen. Say hi, Shrien, Hi, This is Sharian,
Thank you, and I'm joined today by Vicente Calderon. He's

(00:29):
a freelance journalist and the proprietor publisher of Tijuana Press
dot com and he's covered the situation on the Grand
Tijuana for a very long time. It's an excellent work
and we've sent you what you people know about you.
Nice to have you here. Thank you for the invitation,
and in advance, I have to apologize for my English
because this is a picture on the street and the

(00:51):
Tijuana streets. It's excellent. Take a picture in the world
kind of English. I'm a really originally a psychologist. I
graduated from the School of psychology here, but I only
worked for a couple of years and then I got
stuck with journalism and I have been here for more

(01:12):
than thirty years by now. I've been doing journalism from
radio and then I moved to television, and then I
went to the US to the work with Spanish language
media twice in l A and then I came back
and now I'm I'm doing online or or digital medium journalism,

(01:35):
so to speak. So I'm a native here and again
I was just supposed to be working this for a whilt,
and still I got old enough to look like a psychologist.
I just got God on the on the um addiction
for journalism. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, Yeah, that's fascinating. All right.

(01:56):
So the reason we to talk to you today is
that we have seen a dramatic increase in violence in
Tijuana since Friday. Right, we're recording this on the Tuesday,
the sixteenth of August, so if people listening to it
later don't know, but can you explain a little bit
of what happened over the weekend in Tijuana and then

(02:16):
across Mexico as well. Well. The thing began on Friday
here in Mexicali and Tijuana. Megali is the capital of
the state of Baja California, which is in the northwestern
side the end of the US Mexico border. Um, so
we began seeing people burning cars on the road. They
were just ordering people from public transportation to get off

(02:40):
the vehicle. Uh not in a very so to speak
threatening matter kind of way, because they said, well, the
problem is that we do, but you have to get
off because otherwise because when we're going to burn this bus,
and and nobody was actually no, it was really heard intentionally.

(03:01):
We have just in Tijuana, we have about fifteen cases
like that. Was mainly public transportations vehicles or some cases frogs,
cargo trugs, or private vehicles. Most of it were public
transportation vehicles, but people were working, and we're moving people
from their homes to their works or to want to

(03:24):
run one errand to on other side. So we began
to see that this was in a very limited space
of time happening not only in in Tijuana and in Mexicali,
but also and five out of seven cities of Baja California.
Nobody was claiming responsibility, but it looks like it was

(03:45):
a coordinated effort in the basically the main cities of
the state. We were very surprised because even though we
have been dealing with drug violence for many decades, by
now we were seen something who looks like the narco
locales or blockades of the streets with drug traffickers, which

(04:08):
are unfortunately very common in other cities like mon Terrey,
for example, recently in Jalisco on the Pacific coasts in
the central part of Mexico, but not here in Tijuana.
I mean, I know it sounds rare or strange for
many people who know one of our his bad reputation,

(04:29):
but now we never had cases like this before. That's
why it was so surprising at the end. That was
on Friday, and then immediately the local authorities began to
display not only police from different different agencies or also
soldiers who were coincidentally so to speak. We're here in

(04:49):
big numbers and large numbers because there's a really h
big push to put out more soldiers to help with
public safety and Mexico. Not everybody is pleased with that
because they say that Mexico is becoming a militarized country
and it shouldn't be, because we have to We're trying

(05:09):
to be a democracy, and in a democracy, is not
the military or the army in charge of so much responsibility.
But that's something that has been changing specifically with this
new federal administration with the president, and so they sent
out all of the soldiers and police officers and things

(05:33):
basically diminished. But but that time in about less and
in about less than two hours, people was already really scared. Obviously,
the news spread and social media and people began worrying. Also,
they began seeing that the public transportation was not enough

(05:56):
because many were just came to a halt. I mean,
and not just the public transportation, the officials of the city,
but all the digital platform like uber, didy or other services.
We're just worried that it might be the next one.
So if I stay on the roads, am I going
to be the target of these guys. We were not
sure what was going on. We I guess everything one

(06:18):
has like an idea that this was coming or linked
to drug trafficking, but we were not sure at that time.
So um in a couple of hours, every we didn't
see more of these cases. But but at that time
the city was really disrupted, so they began closing. I mean,
the first thing who affected was public transportation. So people

(06:40):
was stranded without with no ways to go to back home.
And some schools were counseling classes and since the students
were not able to find transportation, some offered places to
stay to spend the night on the schools. Also that
happened in in Um with other companies with the Makiladora plants,

(07:04):
the manufacturing plants that are very popular. There's thousands of
people here and in Tijuana who were there also in medically,
but here also they in some cases have to open
spaces so they can spend the night there. And we
went out and was a lot of people stranded with
no place, with no way to move from where they

(07:26):
were when this begun. Yeah, I saw even like Kelly
Max that the supermarket was classed right like they closed
early and they announced that the next day they will
hold their operations, that they will not open so they
will not put in jeopardy to the safety of their workers.
I mean, and they that during Friday, we didn't know

(07:49):
what really what was going on, how severe was this happening.
And just keep on mind that on Friday, Friday was
the end of the of a week of their re
violent scenes in different cities. It began in Guadalajara when
they were the army was trying to capture a couple

(08:11):
of drug lords or chief of cells from the uh Kalis,
the Alisca New Generation cartel, which is the quote unquote
newest and the strongest and most rapidly expand the drug
organization in Mexico and the problems there, the dynamic was
very very different. Again in Tijuana, even after the weekend,

(08:35):
nobody was killed. Just one person in Mexicali got injured
due to burns when while they were burning his truck,
but apparently nothing major. So in the case of the
World House a bit different. There were at gunpoint pulling
people families out of their private vehicles and also bosses.

(08:57):
And there there they were really actually located roads in
an effort to disrupt the operation from the soldiers trying
to capture their their bosses, and so the body's well
we're way more strong sort of speak there. And after
that it moved to one of another state where well

(09:21):
there's high presence of Cartel Alisco new generation, and two
days later we saw the worst case into that Quaries
across from the Passo Texas that what is also another
border town or border city should say that has been
dealing with a lot of drug trafficking caves and and

(09:43):
the things was terribly worse there. I mean they were
there killing civilians randomly. They got to convene its stores
like think about your seven eleven. The counter party is
called also it's a very uh big change in uh.
In one of these cases they just went in open

(10:05):
fire to the cashier and they killed him. In other cases,
a pregnant woman got killed and another one since they
burned this these places. The one who there's two persons
who died due to association because they got were cut up.
They were not able to flee the place when this

(10:25):
guys were showing up there. Many of these guys were
also yelling or screaming, um, hooray for the Caliskon and
Racian boss is called or Sea, I can't remember. He's
not Mencho Mencho Mencho his nickname Mencho or Saghara is

(10:46):
the leader of Calisco New Generation. And they were just
praising him and just saying that there were people from
Mencho and this they were just celebrating him as they
were doing all this destruction and terrorize and people. So
the worst part was in Sis. Sadly, I'm not saying
that this was not bad, but just we have to

(11:07):
put it on perspective and fortunately here suladly for the
people's Fortunately for the people here, nobody was injuring those
activities on Friday, that diminished on Saturday, but we got
more cases on Sunday night and mexically and we actually

(11:29):
have four about four cases on the first and the
last hours of Monday in Ensenada. We are still seeing
if all of these have been related to the same
effort due to organize crime or are just copycats because unfortunately,
unfortunately that also is happening. Some of the cases in

(11:53):
vehicality that happened on Sunday night were according to the
chief of police there just copycasts. Were just stay gonna
vents of the situation. I see, Well, that's that's interesting
because until someone takes responsibility, even if they do, all
the talks about like what cartels are one, that's just
like in theory, right because there you don't know who's

(12:13):
doing well, Am I understanding correctly? Well, yes, because it's
it's not like when a terrorist organization claimed responsibility for
a bombing um in the Middle East, for example. But
here the thing is now the authorities are saying that
it's well, was not just one, but different organizations they blame,
and mainly on Jalisco New Generation because it's one of

(12:36):
the along with this in a cartel more broadly extended
in the state different states, and in this particular case
they can link it. In the case of Jalisco and
Guanajuato because they got information of these two bosses getting
into a meeting and that's why they reacted. In In
the case of Gas was different because everything began there

(12:59):
without the few within inmates of the local jail, where
there are clearly two factions from the the two main
organisms stations who have been controlling turf in the parties. Here,
we were not sure because unfortunately we have not just
one or two. We have a three drug cartels or

(13:22):
trafficing organization who has been acting or the linking uh
for the several years right now, which is the relistan
new generation, the one we talked about, which is the
relatively newest organization. They sin Ala Cartel, who has been
from the cradle of drug traffic in Mexico steps in Alloa,
expanding the rocks that I'm sure they know. A chapel

(13:43):
from the Narco series very popular now has been the
public enemy number one according to Chicago for about eight
years ago and now in a jail in New York.
But there they're suns and their associates are still operating

(14:03):
their trafficing organization along different routes in Mexico and Baha,
California is one of those routes where they have a
lot of strong presence. And also the Ariano Felix organization,
the so called Tijuana cartel that is very popular, has
its own UM series on Netflix as part of Narcos Mexico.

(14:24):
This is the relevance of these kids who who grow
up as as criminals at the border between Tijuana and
San Diego. So we nobody has claimed responsibility UM as
in other cases, but I think it's it's it's safe
to know that these are the main suspects in the

(14:45):
case of Tiquana. It's also the possibility that the field
between these three organizations UM was an excuse for this
level of violence. I mean, everybody is trying to be
the strong girls force. So they challenged themselves not on
this not only in the streets, but on social media.

(15:07):
And this was also a way to challenge the authorities
because even though the authorities reacted quickly kind of subdue
more or frustrated more events, they were able to burn
fifteen cars at the end of the week. And we're
thirty six in different areas, in different cities. So that
is not something that you can say not authorities. The

(15:29):
military chief of the country saying, well with in Tijuana
didn't attempted against so the civilians, well they did. They
didn't kill them, but they burned their property and they
disrupted the whole operation. So we are also seeing very
carefully the way the local, the local and national authorities

(15:51):
are reacting because we were lucky now, but this is
probably will happen again if there's not a really strong
risk on from an intelligent response from the authorities. Yeah, okay,
I'm sorry if I'm sorry if this is silly, but
is there any deeper meeting to it being specifically public transportation?
Like it just seems so specific to like target how

(16:14):
civilians are like transporting themselves. It's just like a show
of power to be like we're going to make everyone
freeze or there is there any deeper meaning to like
what they're targeting, not that I understand so far. I
mean for me right now is because as they did, uh,
they were successful and bringing the city to a halt.

(16:36):
I mean we went out and just think this was
a Friday summer night in revolution who has seen a
renaissance the last for the last ten years. There's a
lot of people coming from the U. S Side and
from Mexico to enjoy the gastronomy, local the bars, the
party scene, what's dead. The only people we were found

(17:00):
we found there Friday night was UM workers that were
not able to find an Uber or the uber was
I talked to some of the Uber drivers that they did.
The drivers to me it went from one to seven.
I mean something will cause you ten dollars were costing

(17:21):
the press was now seven seventy due to the high
demand and poor offer. So no, I don't find another
another explanations so far, so far with the information that
we have until now, um that could explain. But they
did reach a big impact with this relatively easy actions

(17:44):
after all these coordinator attacks. Yeah, it's probably worth mentioning
the context of in one of Goose months kids was
arrested and I believe dates around then, and there was
a huge, huge increase in violence immediately following that, right

(18:06):
and eventually Amblo the president gave the order to release him.
And oh that was yeah, there was My recent was
a video one of the main sons in in something
that we call the Kulia is the name of the city,
is the capital of the status Sinaloa. As we said,
I have family, My mother is from Sinaloa. And some

(18:28):
people from Sinaloa get offended when we said that it's
a cradle of drug trafficking in Mexico because most of
the power, the law, the drug laws come from from
from Sinaloa. But yeah, you're right, you're right. Uh, And
that's something that has become a big recurrent topic when
people criticize, especially the political opposition is the current president,

(18:50):
because they said, this is the origin of this kind
of demonstrations. So when when when the government wants to act. Now,
the criminals know that an effort, a coordinated effort to
get out on the streets and to show their muscle
could um make the government to think twice, to hold

(19:12):
their operation and to free in some cases these guys. Again,
in the case of Jalisco, they were on the way,
according to the official statement from the Mexican Army, to
try to capture these two leaders, but didn't happen. I mean,
the criminals get organized to blockade the actions of the authorities.

(19:33):
In the case of Tiquana, we were not we didn't
get to that point. Was more like there's also one
theory which says that the local chapter or to speak
of the carteli was just trying to replicate what happened there,
just to to to show the force, to demonstrate the
muscle as as a criminal organization here in Tijuana. Yeah,

(19:57):
that's basically the two theories that at this at this
between them and the other one is that, um, they
were just replicating a little bit in a in a
in a different dimension, so to speak, what happened in
just to tell them, you know, the same here, this
is what you're gonna be facing. And that was a
message for the authorities. Yeah, I saw a resident compared

(20:20):
to what it was like in the early stages of COVID,
like how ghost town it was. And I mean, what
do you think about it? That's pretty powerful if a
cartel can have the impact of a pandemic, if not
more so, it's it's uh, it's terrifying. I can't imagine.
I think, what's worse when we were now when COVID
first begun in the lockdown and this will be too silly,

(20:45):
but there's the red like districts that never sleeps. Here
we went to that particular horridor. Nobody was in the
main drag there. But it's a reality when we we
we just we went out and we got video of
this streets basically empty. Yeah, your video on your Twitter,

(21:06):
we'll we'll find a way to link to. It was incredible.
It was just like it's normally like the Strip in
Las Vegas or something, and it was just a ghost town.
Again on the people we found there was people looking
for transportation. Yeah, it's crazy. So there's been a massive,
at least show of state power in Tijuan in the

(21:28):
last I don't know, four or five six months. Like
they're constantly rotating new troops in. They do the parades
with a big flag, and it's like to looking from
the outside from a less informed perspective, it looks like
there are these various actors, right, and each of them
sort of flexes their muscles in a different way. And

(21:49):
and is that relevant here? Has the army they discovered
a tunnel if I remember correctly, have they done much
else in Baja since I started these big deployments. That's
one of the main complaints of the locals organizations civil
or civilian organizations here because even though we have. I'm
gonna I make some notes, and we have five thousand,

(22:11):
six hundred and sixty soldiers UM right now in the
state of Baja California, most of them in Tijuana, who
have been deployed since August last year, which is when
the National Austriity Austrility of Peace as the government called it,
began UM. But unfortunately, I can give an other statistics.

(22:32):
We have only just in Tijuana and the municipality of
Tijuana so far this year, almost one thousand, two hundred homicides.
I mean we as as a city, as a municipality,
we have way more homicides than many Mexican states. This
is the level of violence that we are dealing with

(22:54):
in a daily basis. And and this is when you
hear the authorities talking about a reduction on homicides, which
is true, probably true in terms of the numbers of statistics.
But still one thousand. We're we're a little bit past
half the year and we already passed one tho homside,

(23:15):
I mean when people get alarmed in Chicago is when
you are hitting. I remember a couple of years ago,
like five hundred and the whole year we have this
in three months and and and this is the kind
of problems that we're dealing with. But you have to
also keep it in mind. Last week the d o

(23:35):
J of the US, the FBI, the d A, Customs
and Border Protection have a gathering to announce that San
Diego became the epics center for smuggling of Fentadel. Six
of the seizures of Fentonel in all the nations occur
between Sanito, the main part of entry here in San
Diego to Calexico, and there's there are six parts of

(23:58):
entry in this stretch of land and the end of
the border on the western end of the border. Well
these places is where more than half of the phantomel
that is being smuggled to the US it's going through.
That will explain partly the level of biodies that we've
been didn't and how even though there's good efforts by

(24:20):
the local authorities, state and local authorities, I mean, even
given that there's cases of corruption, as in any other agency.
Um alwould say that we have great, very capable detectives
and police officers and Mexico but there but in many
cases there's no political will from their bosses to really

(24:40):
act on on and the on the benefited, benefiting the public.
So this is the kind of build the problem world.
You know, Fantai is now the most lucrative drug to
to transport or traffic and between Mexico and the US,
even with all the problems that is cons in in

(25:00):
the US with more than one and twenty thou people
dying in the last year or overdoses linked to opioids.
But also now we have a problem that is growing
with people dying with fantanyl overdose. Besides the fantany, the
metal fantoming problem that also has been increasing the traffic
here and now we are seeing the comeback of some

(25:22):
drugs trafficking and deep and new levels like heroin and
cocaine who came out of fashion for a while, but
I always doing a kind of a resurgence at least
in this corridor. Yeah, that's fascinating like that that there's
been an increase specifically coming through that Baja California area.
Maybe then we should explain a little bit about these

(25:44):
three actors, right they c J n G will call
them the cut the Sinaloa and the Ariana Felix or
Tijuana Cartel. Can you explain a little bit about who
they are and where they sort of fit into this
where they come from maybe well I basically all come
from the UH. People watching Netflix, Narcos and Netflix, they

(26:06):
talk about this federation of cartels. Again everything the main
power was from the state of Sinaloa and between nineteen
mid nineties n mid nineties when the rest of Felix
Gayarlo they established. They distribute the routes and one was

(26:27):
the one of the Pacific along the Pacific from Sinaloa
to the along the Pacific, and they basically um cut
the country into different the main routes, and then you
have different organizations. Those organizations who used to be together
became a powerful house on their own, and that has

(26:47):
increased the violence from the nineties because now you have
from the beginning the Adriano Felix who used to take
partners with the Chapel Uh and there are been in
disputes and feuds among them. So the main one is
was the main one and oldest is the Sinaloa cartel

(27:08):
had by the Chapo usman Uh and now is myel
el Mario Sambada, which is still a gentleman, gentleman around
probably getting to their eighties I'm not quite sure, but
but who has been on the run for many years
but relatively calm and with big investments and with the

(27:29):
high presence here in Baha, California, with that faction of
this in a low cartel, and there's in a local
there also when after the arrest of the Chapo is
it's run. And the other big faction for the sons
of Chapo Guzman Video and and the lost chapter, they
call it los Chapitos. There's like three three even Archivaldo

(27:53):
and I can't remember the name of the other one.
So that's it's in a lot cartel with with presents,
but mainly and then nothern part and really mainly basicly
basically uh, their thing is to manufacturing um medam phetomine
and now fanelil and send it to the US. UM

(28:14):
then they are the Yellow Felix du organization who became
as a result of that division, that distribution that according
to the most commonly known narrative about drug world, um
Felix dis tribe that after his arrest established themselves in Tijuana.
They are from Sinaloa too, but they established themselves from

(28:36):
Tijuana in the actually in the eighties but at the
nineties they became powerful on its own and they due
to the proximity of San Diego and to the fact
that they missed mixed with many of the border lifestyle
a lead of Tijuana. They changed the image of the
drug traffickers. They micor became more entrepreneurs and they wanted

(29:00):
to become the main the first Mexican cartel, Colombian pabulus
of our style. According to the narrative, no, and they did.
They became the nineties they were most one of the
most powerful drug organization in the world for the amount
of not just marijuana cocaine that they were moving. I

(29:21):
mean they established relationships with Colombian and after a while,
Colombians were not trafficking in Mexico. They were just sending
the drug to the Mexicans. At the beginning, they were
Colombians were kind of leasing the routes in the Mexican
territory to send the drugs into the US. But then
when this division of a new commerce and the drug

(29:42):
trade in Mexico, they decided and I think the Ariana
falls have some um something to do with that. They
want to go and get the drugs from Colombians in
the South and South America and bringing and just take
care of the whole thing, become their own curtel. And
then then Kalis another off offshoot is what you call

(30:06):
it like a spinoff spinoff kind of another way, all
the of the Salga because they used to have a
presence in Guallahara and the different factions were killing each other,
changing loyalties and then began a force on their own
um after a big division between the beltran Leba group

(30:30):
and the Nasal Coronal organization and they become their own
cartain on the own. And and that's what according to
the d e A and and also Mexican authorities is
expanding more rapidly in very short period of time and
then unfortunately have been moving not only to draw trafficing,

(30:51):
but there's many small groups that now are making their money.
And the whole way of the mafia, the cause A
Nostra was doing their money in New York in the
seventies or before, not that they were just extorting money
out of local businesses, from a well established chain of

(31:13):
stores to a little tagistan on the corner. There's also
the trafficking of gasoline in Mexico and has been doubling,
I mean anything that they once they get powerful, they
began to move to other activities. For example, in the
case of the anothetics, kick tapping wasn't a thing, let's say,

(31:34):
before the ninety before the the nineties in Baha, California,
they were kidnapping people who owned who used to be
there their associates. Is the the where's my money kind
of thing? You no like to think about good fellows
and and and they were killing a chonge there is
everything among themselves. But later they began that they were

(31:57):
were they were acting with a lot of impunity, that
they had a lot of cobs start this on their payroll,
so they began to move to other ways to earn money.
And that's what we have seen now that these expanding
this little as in Colombia used to go to baby cartels.
We now have like a new chapters, smaller organization, not

(32:18):
as powerable, but as violent as as do what we do.
I wanted to ask because I saw a lot of
these like supposedly like they come up on TikTok or
Facebook right there, these little announcements from the different cartels,

(32:40):
and they tend to say, at least in the context
of California, that like, we don't want to disrupt ordinary
people are good people, good citizens of Oa, California, you know,
but we need you to stay in your homes this weekend, right,
things like that. But it obviously does have an impact
on the people who to doing what if they do

(33:01):
to run their business. And so I was wondering sort
of how people get through these difficult times in Antijuan
and California. Well, times are becoming more difficult because many
people believe this because the widespread possibility of disseminating these
messages now and you never know which ones are real, yes,

(33:22):
and which ones are not. Um. I mean, you guys
have the same with the gangs, remember, like don't bling
your your headlines because the end the gang will start
killing people left and right. Just take that on steroids
now with social media and and now everybody with the
phone that can get that messages. And that was that

(33:45):
played a big role in what happened on Friday here
in Tiquana. They were recycling a video of three guys
video taping themselves in from of the Attorney General's office
in Tijuana. Says so Mantris here, we're gonna kill everybody
and just being very loud and and and with a
lot of insults and trying to scare the uh everybody,

(34:10):
the rivals, but everybody else. So during the hours of Friday,
somebody began retweeting that when was at least a year
old b of them claiming that that they were they
were over here. So some people think this all this
commotion happening, a lot of this cars burn. They didn't
know exactly what was going on. Some people began to

(34:33):
call in narco b locals that just scare more people.
And then you see this, so the level of anxiety
increased significantly. You have to be very careful and there's
also you have to also keep in mind the political
feuds that we are seeing. What you are seeing between
some people loyal to Trump and the Real Comparty and
some people that are against Trump. Is the same here

(34:58):
with Morena and non MODERNA actors or people who likes
the Brenda, which is the political party founded creative by
the current president, are the ones who are against them
and are very unhappy or angry with all these social policies.
Um and and for example, we have here a television

(35:19):
station run owned by the former governor of Baja California,
who has is a very close friend of Andres Manuelope
or the current president, who became a very powerful figure
and due to his proximity. Basically the current president revived
this gentleman, which by the way lives in San Diego
and Chula Vista in a big mansion because he exiled

(35:43):
himself from about thirty years ago when he was associated
with the last p r I government, the pre the
political polity run Mexican for the last for seven years
in a row. Uh, he was very close associate with
he could Laba Morta, which was the the current governor

(36:05):
who didn't finish his his turn because the and then
president of Mexico, Carlos Arina's accused him of corruption, so
he just removed him and this guy Himmonia, became a paria.
So the p AN the new power basically mark him

(36:27):
because also he has some previous suspicious relationships through the
baseball team here in Tejuana and from other endeavors that
makes them looks like very close to the Ariana Phelix
U organization. The Ariana Phelix organization has been linked for
many years with the last administration because they claimed that

(36:47):
that last pr renstrations is the one who basically opened
the door for the Ariana Felix to establish him BA California.
So this is what we are seeing that that this messages, well,
now this guy we just left the office that they
just finished his governorship on December last year, so there's

(37:08):
a new governor. But he also owns a television station.
So he who is out criticizing the current governor, which
is why where the same political party. It was uh
using some of these messages with no proof or no

(37:29):
validity or very suspicious and he was saying in their
newscasts were saying, well, there's also this happening. There's the
threads and they know that this government is corrupt, and
they were just adding to the fire, and I mean
as an analog, you know, the real fire, but to
the concern of the people. And in this term like

(37:52):
saying that all we're gonna start a lockdown and we'll
be to what's for talking expression for toka like the
you cannot go out, Yes martial martial will start at
six if we see you on the streets. When I
killed you. There was a message that that televiation station

(38:15):
was repeated once and again every day, So I was
just added to So all these all these new novelties
sort of pig with the digital era are also creating
bigger fires in the political spectrum and in a place
where you never know what exactly the line is between
the criminals and the government. Yeah, I think it's a

(38:36):
very good thing to hide that. Actually this idea that
there's like distinct blocks, right like and then this supplies
And I don't want to say, like this is a
Mexican thing, because it's not. This is a global thing,
but like that there's a distinct block between like crime
and media that you consume and the government and the
people that like working for the state, like like the

(38:57):
the idea that these are very separate and that the
world doesn't it doesn't apply here, and I don't think
we should say elsewhere either. Yeah, it's it's a problem.
He's becoming it's becoming worse and worse. No, because this
faction now, this other arena, mean, we are seen it
here also with the official statements from the authorities. I

(39:18):
mean I was telling you earlier that they the military
had the Secretary of the Military says, well, in Tijuana,
they didn't went against the civilians, and the governor also
repeated that, so well here, fortunately they didn't affect that
the life of the people. Of course, of course they did.
I mean, we were lucky they didn't kill anybody, but

(39:38):
but no, they did. And so you have to also
be finding that propaganda from the government against the propaganda
from the criminal groups and the different political legal factions
in other quote unquote non state actors, just to put
it in a different context. So it's becoming very difficult.

(39:58):
And yeah, I always say, excuse me if I repeat this,
but honestly believe, I mean, there's always great investigators detectives
in Mexico willing to put their lives on the line
for the good of people, but it's not always in
the best conditions. And and this is like just the

(40:19):
character of traffic. Uh probably you were you guys were
very young when traffic came across. I mean, a very
popular movie which is about from the nineties and the
end of the night is probably Yeah, where where the
one of the three main characters is an honest Mexican
caps I. Fortunately I met several of the cases like that,

(40:43):
but some of them have been killed due to their honesty.
But also others that learned to survive and play along
and try to do as much good as they can
um within the circumstances they are dealing with. Yeah, I
think talking of good investigators who are trying to heal

(41:05):
with difficult circumstances, maybe you should touch on the violence
against suppress that we've seen in back California and in
Mexico as a wholes. I mean you're comfortable talking about. Yes, yes, unfortunately,
and this is terribly sad. A couple of hours ago,
we just learned that the one of the reporters who

(41:26):
was reported missing in the neighbors in state of Sonora
was being found dead. So we have another killing of
a reporter. We also saw that the case of stare As,
they killed for employees of four workers of a radio
station broadcaster. Yeah, affailingly randomly apparently randomly Okay, but then

(41:49):
I mean we I mean, depending on which told you
take your look too. Because there's like the official for
the government, federal government from the CPGA, the from needed
to protect journalists and or report other organizations. Bary is
not that there's about ten or fifteen between I would

(42:09):
say ten or fourteen or fifteen journalists or media workers skilled.
So far this year, we have two of those killings
happening here in Tijuana in in January. Um one of
them them, I'm convinced by now that he was killed
for the leader of rog trafficking cell was operating in

(42:31):
the east side of the city, who wasn't pleased with
some of the stories that one of the media outlets
his name is one of the media outists that Margharito
was working too as a freelancer. Wash was pushing very

(42:51):
revealing stories about the operation of the traffic or so
he ordered and pay for some other people to kill
Margharito because he, and my humble opinion, was the weakest link,
because he was living on the same neighborhood that these
guys were operating, working the night shift. That is very

(43:13):
common that only a few of them are left to
to do that chief that beat uh. He was easily identifiable,
identifiable for the crooks because Margarito will show up at
the crime scenes and in many of these cases you
have people who work for the same organization organize show

(43:36):
enough to make sure that the guy was really killed
and who showed up and and I mean even when
the killing is done, the criminals are still working the
scene and in some cases we met with these guys,
guys without knowing. I mean, these guys were were um
even willing to go to the funeral of Margharito. The

(43:57):
only reason they were not there is because they were
the approach is to a lot of military presence on
during the funeral. So I'm convinced that Margarito was killed
due to his work as a as a photographer. UM.
In the other case of my friend all coworker, Lord
de Sando, I'm not sure what was the motive. In

(44:19):
both cases are two people in jail, but the procedure
is still on the beginning stages. We are not proved,
and the main thing is we don't know who order
and pay for their killings. Well we know or I
think I have a big suspicion about which one is
the guy who killed them. In the case of Margarito,

(44:40):
not in the case of Lords and the authorities, I'm
not confident enough that they're gonna be able to solve
the crime in this particular cases. The other one, there's
two cases in Michigan, there's other cases and Tom lipas
Uh I guess by now we have to count at
least two or three and Sonora with the news that

(45:00):
we got today. So it's difficult. I mean, not everybody
is is risking their life when they're doing journalism in Mexico,
but you never know when the danger will jump against you.
I have a always tell this story about a photographer
to what was called to cover a traffic accident my minority. No,

(45:25):
not Well. The problem is that the the guy who
was involved in the traffic and the accident was a
drug blord, very a very well known operator, very dangerous operator,
and he kept taking pictures. Thanks to some of the officers,
firefighters and ladies who saw that he was being um

(45:45):
treated not very naively, and the ladies that intervened, he
was able to get away. He had to live town
for a while. Uh, that's it. But that's the kind
of environment that we are dealing with. It is not
that every story makes you put you in the injured,
but you never I mean, you can do a lot

(46:05):
of You can be a reporter and not be on danger,
not being you don't get into subjects that are tricky.
You don't get too much in political corruption, and you
don't you get too much on on drug trafficking, on
kia and homicides. You're pretty much gonna be able to
do fine. But but the promise sometimes if you're doing

(46:26):
a story none related, there may be some link to
put you in danger. And that's the situation. And unfortunately,
the level of impunity and on crimes again journalists is
even worse than the level of impunity of general civilians
in Mexico. I will say that journalists about ninety personal

(46:47):
ninety eight percent and ninety eight percent for for for
case of journalists on civilians, So our case is worse.
The possibility of somebody will be punished for kill in you,
it's it's very, very very say yeah, I'm sorry, that's terrible.

(47:15):
I don't know. It's again, like you said, it's not
just a Mexican problem. You see in so many governments
across the world where press our targeted specifically. Um, but yeah,
and I appreciate your work even more knowing that the
percentage of cases are just violence against you, so against
you as a journalist is so high. It's very sad

(47:37):
and it's very disencouraging. But I always, I mean, my
familyhood is not copy because I'm still working on Friday.
They called me the one. They want me to stay
at the office. They don't want me to get out.
Um and I understand, I understand pepperab and it's one

(47:58):
of my mainscerns. But also on the other hand, it's uh,
you know, this is important information, even when we are
dealing with an avalanche of information that is not necessarily
well treated. We need to have good information so people
will make good decisions. We are in a very small

(48:19):
joint democracy. We just began to make in roads on
electoral democracy. It's relatively recent. Began basically at the end
of the nineties here in Baha, California, and has been
moving to the two thousands and now we are unfortunately
back back in many ways. But but now you can

(48:41):
rely now on who is running the elections together. That
information was very important. Now we need to be also
very make a lot of big efforts to explain people
that you can make progress. Mexico is making progress even
this and these dire conditions. But you have to pay

(49:02):
attention and also try to to learn where the information
is coming from. That not all the media is the
same that we have. We come from a big tradition
of going and control media. Now media control or subdue
trafficking organizations, and in some cases both are linked and

(49:26):
and working to give your trouble. And also there's a
lot of press that has chosen to just go with
the prop and just live out of propaganda. And sometimes
they do good things, like they go and give boys
to the people in the local community, so the the
water is re established or there's more um, there's no

(49:49):
more need for to fix a park or to public transportation,
And they do do good. This is important. All the
the job of the reporters is good, but in the
in the bigger and some of the bigger problems, they
tend to be on the side of the government because
the government found this way to give you a lot
of public advertisement and to have you under their control.

(50:12):
And many reporters want to be good journalism with journalists,
but their editors of the owners of the companies are
not willing to rouse that easy way to get a
lot of money from the government, and more easily than
to start putting themselves on the risk, which implies when
you do heavily digging or criticizing the powers of being Yeah,

(50:37):
how how would someone know that they're getting accurate information?
In that case, This applies to every country in the world.
You have to really be conscious and like seek out
particular sources. But like in this case, what do you
recommend for people? I mean it's difficult. You're right, this
is a simple everywhere. But I guess the same recipe

(50:57):
works here. I mean, just double chaired, don't check their sources,
try to compare several UM media outlets and to see
where it's reporting UM, whether each of them is reporting
UM the same way that you find the way they
are leaning in the US is the what you find here.

(51:20):
But the problem is the established media, the how do
you call it um? The traditional media is becoming less
relevant because most of the main good journalism is done
by small revolves soup. They began their own entities, their
own platforms. I mean some cases there's good reporters working

(51:42):
for good media outlets. Normally those are not local. I mean,
when you see the big media companies, don't they don't
have which some exceptional, but they don't have many people
doing balizing at the local level. You will find good
local journalism with these renegades or rebels that have people

(52:04):
who have been fired from the big, larger organization and
you have to be looking for those options. I mean
that doesn't mean that it's a guarantee that they're gonna
gonna be independent completely. You also learned how to read them.
For example, there's a good case of two reporters. We
just where they resigned or were fired, we don't know exactly,

(52:25):
but they from a well prestigious publication Lucally. They began
their own operation. They have they are good, proven, proven
as a reporters. You know what I'm trying to say
that they have a reporter. Yeah, yeah, I thought that
was what it was. I was just like, I don't

(52:47):
actually don't know. I don't know phrases either. Yeah. They
made a name for from themselves doing good journalism with
other publications. I began their own media outlet, and some
people who complaining about they were too close to some
UH state agency with the new government. And they have

(53:07):
great information. They do good, good um reporting, but you
have to look curve carefully and which which type and
where are they leaning to. So I always read them.
I just take it with a grain nut salt that
you will see say in English, to try to balance
my intake of information from different sources. It's difficult to

(53:31):
tell the people because they are not general The general
public is not as involved or interested in media on
and on the newspaper or on the news. We are
because we live out of it. But people is doing
their life and making the the will to move around,
not for all of us in different France, as a doctor,

(53:53):
as a housewife, as a teacher, and they don't have
enough time to then to analyze media the way you do.
So we I think we need to do a little
bit of that. Try to tell them this is for
this reason we believe this media outlet is living in
this direction, this is subsidized, or is getting We do
that this is getting this amount of money from the

(54:16):
government and not this amount of money from the government
that will give you a hand to take it and
to see who are they dealing with. I mean there's
guys who have been working for the governmen now are
back to reports. I mean therese cases like that in
the US. Stephanopolis used to work for the for the
one of the presidents on h the guy for of

(54:36):
Harball from MSNBC used to work for Nixon. I mean,
we see this, but in this environment it is more
difficult to to live out those connections. And it's always
tricky to be moving from government jobs to journalism jobs
because it's not I mean you have to so I

(54:57):
mean when in my perspective, I never work for the government,
I hope I would never have to do that. I
respect the ones they do, but you as we need
to be more transparent, transparent in that sense to be
able to be fair with the people. Yeah, that makes sense.
There's this interesting development in Mexico that I've seen in
some areas, like if I want to learn about like

(55:19):
what's happening in the yucky pobulus in Sonora or in
chapters like these people who will just be like citizen
reporters on Facebook doing very local reporting that it seems
to get really popular, but that they will sort of
blow up really quickly doing this like Facebook only reporting.
It's really interesting because there's a big need of information
and they know many people in Mexico have learned to

(55:41):
be the strugful of the quote unquote legacy media the
expression I was looking for legacy media, the big companies
um and And the problem is there's this risk that
many of those media new media outlets which is basically
Facebook accounts or TikTok accounts. Now, the people doesn't know

(56:03):
how to deal with I mean they they are they
have good intentions, but they don't really know how journalists
should work. And in some cases they think, like some
for example, that they can take money for different actors
and that will help them to grow and and I
guess you can, but but you have to be very careful.

(56:27):
And this has been a big problem that I'll try
to emphasize every time I talk about our situation. For
many years, the government was too close or their reporters
were too close to the government. The government will make
easy with a lot of privileges for the reporters. So
they learned to do this to work in this scenario.
So if I was close to the government, they will

(56:49):
expect it's a lot of things for me, so to speak.
I can get good money. I can get probably a
license to for a bar way quicker than somebody who
is not doesn't have that access to the government. And
I can probably get like um taxi licenses for example,
because I'm a reporter, because I'm I'm close, I can
get close to the movies and checkers and the political arena. No,

(57:13):
but you so they did that and when the drop
trafficking with the narcos became another power, many many reporters
began to see it in the same way. So they
were closely with the government was powered, and then we're
coursing with the businessmen. And they were closely with the
with the unions because they were giving them handouts or

(57:34):
treat them them prevalently, or they were able to do
some traffic of influence, who will give them some benefits.
When the narcos became a problem regional power on their own,
some of the reporters didn't see the different or gaining
too close to that power, and that has put a
lot of the reporters in danger. I think the reporters

(57:56):
are learning a little bit more to stay away from
those But there is also with the abandon of social media,
many people who are really crooked or that they were
not very interested in doing things ethically from the beginning
that now see that with a Facebook account, with a
TikTok account or Instagram or any other platform, you can

(58:17):
pass by a reporter. So there's this need of information,
but also it is filled with um with good and
bad people. As in any other cases I always talk.
I mean, this is the all analogy of a gun
is the gun bad or good? All depends on the
circumstances you are using it. No, I would Yeah, yeah,

(58:40):
I'm not not a gang guy. But I don't want
to get into your your your political discourse about your
First Amendment. That. Yeah, that's a whole another episode needed it. Yeah,
that's fine, he said, sure, did you have anything else? No,
that was awesome, Thank you so much for all the information. Yeah,

(59:03):
And talking of reliable media, where can people find you online?
Where can they find your work? Where can they find
your social media? The main thing is Tijuana Press dot com.
That's main patroom is just an online needed media outlet.
Is not a newspaper. It's just when we we have
been changing our way of work because we began as

(59:24):
a daily we're no longer to do that because we
don't have enough resources for that. But also there's plenty
of daily media outlets, digital media outlets for the daily stories.
We want to do a little bit more in them,
more investigative, more give you context of what is going on.
We we are in Spanish, but you can follow us
on Twitter on add Tijuana Press because we try to

(59:47):
with our poor English, try to do some on tweets
on English with the help of Google Translator or other Hell,
guys who other colleague that will correct or spelling. But
that's the main way to get all of us. Well,
I think you're English is great. Uh you talked to
us for an hour and I understood everything. Um. But yeah,

(01:00:09):
but thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Yeah,
thank you, No, thank you, guys. You always help us
to spread the world and to be able to put
ourselves to be judged by the public. This is what
it is more important for us. But we do invest
in algorithms from any social platform because we believe in
and that the people will be willing to find us

(01:00:32):
if they are really interested. And you guys help us
about in that sense. Yeah, thank yeah, thank you so
much giving us some of your time. We really appreciate it.
Thank you. We'll be here if you would be, it
would be a big help. Thank you. Thank you. So
it could happen here as a production of pool Zone

(01:00:52):
Media and more podcast on cool Zone Media. Visit our
website cool zone media dot com, or check us out
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it could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone Media
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