Welcome to the Crime Fiction Files. I’m CIA veteran Carmen Amato, sharing the encounters, experiences and current events behind my crime fiction thrillers, including the award-winning Detective Emilia Cruz police series set in Acapulco.
When I was running a counterdrug program for the CIA, we discovered an auction website that was like eBay for cartel killers, known as sicarios.
The shock wasn’t that such a website existed, but at how cheap it was to hire a killer. Top bids were around US$200.
Considering the risks and danger why work for so little?
Please read on.
The Numbers Game
After Jalisco New Generation Cartel kingpin Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera was killed earlier this year, Mexican authorities discovered his business ledgers. El Mencho kept records of paying low-level sicarios as little as $140 per week. More experienced foot soldiers got $225.
Again, why take such a deadly job for such a relatively small amount?
Best paycheck wins
Dr. Rafael Prieto-Curiel has the answer: even entry-level sicarios are paid better than Mexico’s minimum wage, which is $90 a week. If you work outside the formal economy your pay is even less.
Kind of puts that $200 bid to carry out a cartel killing into perspective.
Joining a cartel comes with better pay, but also a host of perks like food, guns, hookers, transportation, clothing, and a sense of belonging as well as protection from rivals.
Lots of opportunities to learn new skills, too. Cartels are involved in drug making/smuggling, extortion, human trafficking, sex trafficking, illegal logging, etc.
The corporate angle
Currently a faculty member at Vienna’s Complexity Science Hub, Prieto-Curiel is a mathematician who worked on crime forecasting for the Mexico City police force. He says collectively cartels are Mexico’s 5th largest employer, with about 183,000 “employees.” This is up from 112,000 in 2021.
Cartels are also Mexico’s top recruiter, needing to “hire” at least 350 warm bodies per week to make up for losses due to arrests, killings, and disappearances.
Hard to capture all that in an Indeed.com job listing . . .
Acapulco, the recruiting poster child
Prieto-Curiel specifically called out Acapulco, the setting for the Detective Emilia Cruz series, as an example of how one recruiter can scoop in numerous new “employees,” saying: “A cartel member is capable of using his own social network, the friends, the family or the neighbors, to keep recruiting. This recruitment, once it’s inside a neighborhood, you see that more and more people will join this cartel . . . In Acapulco, you have some cartel members which keep recruiting . . . and now Acapulco is going through a very violent moment in its history with this reproductive process of cartels.”
Stopping the recruitment
Prieto-Curiel argues the real solution to cartel violence in Mexico is cutting off recruitment with a stick and carrot approach: make recruiting a crime and create economic programs that are viable alternatives to becoming a sicario.
Going after kingpins like El Mencho shows the government’s force and determination, but only closing the recruitment pipeline will have a lasting effect.
As for that eBay-like auction site . . . what happened next is still classified.
#excerpt
The recruitment issue is a grim angle to the drug war violence but also a future Detective Emilia Cruz plot element.
In novella THE LISTMAKER OF ACAPULCO Emilia contends with the opposite—a would-be sicario who wants to escape the cartel. Here’s her first clue:
~
Frowning with curiosity, Emilia followed the coroner to the stitched-up body on the table and was immediately struck by all the tattoos. Five teardrops down one cheek indicated the number of professional hits. A cross adorned with flowers decorated his upper chest, along with the legend Jesu Cristo en Cielo. Sleeves of fanciful animals covered both arms from shoulder to wrist.
“Five kills,” Emilia murmured.
“Maybe he found Jesus later.”
The waxy face was composed, the eyes closed. He wasn’t tall or well-built or good looking. Without the tattoos he might have been an ordinary fisherman or taxi driver.
“How old was he?” Emilia asked. For a moment she wondered if anyone was worried that he hadn’t come home, not that they would file a Missing Persons report on a gang member.
“According to the death record, Julio Lira Valdez was 24 years old,” Prade said briskly. The coroner turned the dead man’s hands palm up and spread the fingers apart.
“Which death record?”
“State of Guerrero vehicle accident database,” Prade said. “Nine of his fingers identify him as the late Julio Lira Valdez, reportedly dead in a car fire two months ago.”
“Only nine fingers?”
Prade adjusted the fixture above the table, throwing brighter light across the man’s right hand. “The tenth belongs to someone else. The right index finger is that of a man named Tito Sandino Hernandez.”
“He’s the other shooter. In the hospital right now.”
“Well, this one is wearing his fingerprint.”
THE LISTMAKER OF ACAPULCO is a Kindle Short.
#thankyou
A heartfelt thank-you to reader Steve in Cypress for taking the time to share his review of DRAGON CARTEL, the latest Detective Emilia Cruz novel:
Emilia is a smart, complicated, vulnerable, gorgeous badass working in a male-dominated profession. In Dragon Cartel, Emilia finally gets the respect from her peers that she so richly deserves . . . I have enjoyed each of the books in the series. I look forward to #11!
With so many books being published every day, reviews are critical to getting them discovered! I truly appreciate your help getting the word out by leaving a short review of DRAGON CARTEL. Mystery lovers are the absolute best! Thank you.
That’s all for this edition. Thank you for spending this time with me.
Until next time,
PS: A percentage of book sales and affiliate links go to support veterans and first responder organizations. When you buy a book, invite me on a podcast or recommend this newsletter, you help me help others. Thank you.
MY BACKSTORY— I learned a few things about danger, deception and resilience during a 30-year career with the CIA focusing on counterdrug and technical collection. Now a mystery author, those lessons play out on the page, especially in the Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series set in Acapulco. Starting with CLIFF DIVER, the series is a back-to-back winner of the Poison Cup Award for Outstanding Series from CrimeMasters of America. I’ve also written historical and political thrillers, essays about the craft of crime fiction, and live with a very large white dog named Bear.
In case you missed earlier newsletters:
5th largest employer. Unreal. I've never been to Acapulco, or Mexico for that matter, but like Jennifer was saying, I remember it being a very popular tourist spot back in the day.
Thanks for explaining this recruiting process, Carmen. Living in Mexico, I'm aware that cartels are large and very profitable organizations, but I didn't realize how the recruiting process works.