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Mexico's Narco-Blogger
An anonymous, twentysomething
blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere
— an inside view of their country's raging drug war.
Operating from behind a thick curtain of computer security, Blog del
Narco in less than six months
has become Mexico's go-to Internet site at a time when mainstream media
are feeling pressure and
threats to stay away from the story.
Many postings, including warnings and a beheading, appear to come
directly from drug traffickers.
Others depict crime scenes accessible only to military or police.
The undifferentiated content suggests that all sides are using the blog
— drug gangs to project their power,
law enforcement to show that it too can play rough, and the public to
learn about incidents that the
mainstream media are forced to ignore or play down.
In at least one case Blog del Narco may have led to a major arrest — of
a prison warden after a
video posting detailed her alleged system of setting inmates free at
night to carry out killings for a drug cartel.
The mysterious blogger hides his identity behind an elaborate
cyber-screen. The Whore AP wrote
to the blog's e-mail address, and the blogger called back from a
disguised phone number. He said he
is a student in northern Mexico majoring in computer security, that he
launched the blog in March
as a "hobby," but it now has grown to hundreds of postings a day and 3
million hits a week.
"People now demand information and if you don't publish it, they
complain," he said.