On November 30, 2021, in the District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington DC, Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of notorious drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, one of the leaders of the still all-powerful Sinaloa Cartel, was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

A minimal punishment compared to the seriousness of the crimes charged against him by the United States Department of Justice: drug trafficking, money laundering, having paid millionaire bribes to Mexican authorities and having helped "El Chapo" in the jailbreak from a maximum security prison in Mexico that occurred in 2015.

The low sentence handed down against Emma Coronel could be the product of her collaboration with the United States authorities, we will never know for sure for her own safety. What seems to me to be a fact is that it is a reward, because in the end she had the courage to break with the Sinaloa Cartel and plead guilty, breaking a paradigm.

The role of women in the cartels

On the same day, November 30, was the launch of my book "Emma y las otras señoras del narco", by Penguin Random House, a publisher chronicle-long-winded report in which I address the story of Emma, ​​whom I met personally in 2016, when she gave me the first interview ever given by the wife of a member of the leadership of organized crime in Mexico.For two years, I maintained With her intermittent communication, I was able to interview people who know her directly, direct witnesses to the events that I narrate in the book, and I had access to her criminal file and that of her husband.

Having communication with Emma, ​​listening to her, opened my eyes and made me reflect on the role of women within the drug cartels, not as "decorative objects" as they are portrayed in television series, but from the point of view of the role they play within the nuclei of drug families and the personal lives of drug traffickers. She made me question myself. Who are these women? What are their profiles? What is their importance? In what extent are they victims and to what extent are they victimizers?

Later, I met and interviewed Diana Espinosa, still the wife of Rafael Caro Quintero, who was the leader of the Guadalajara cartel, released by order of a judge in 2013 and currently a fugitive from justice. He is one of the most wanted by the US government, which accuses him of having returned to drug trafficking.

Diana opened up even more to me the perspective of the hell that the women of these drug traffickers can live, the price they pay and the superhuman effort to try to get out of those circles. And she helped me see the issue as a matter of public, social, and anthropological interest in deep Mexico.

An infinite spiral

It was thus, with that vision, that I undertook the task of knowing the role of women in the family nuclei of the drug cartels in Mexico and I understood that they are a fundamental point for the reproduction of the criminal system and for its very existence. Therefore, they are a fundamental point to break the system.

Mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, lovers, all of them are an essential part of drug trafficking leaders, they legitimize them, they feed their ego and aspirations for 'greatness', they help them justify themselves before themselves, they are raison d'être, its vice and weak point.

They are the engine and at the same time the goal to be achieved. Through them they procreate children and extend their criminal dynasty, within the family nucleus they replicate the macho and patriarchal criminal system in their own sons and daughters, making said system an infinite spiral.

Entering the criminal nucleus through the back door

As a woman, a Mexican and a journalist, it is obligatory to reflect objectively and with a sense of gender self-criticism on the role of women in these criminal organizations. They are the ones who enjoy the money obtained by their children, husbands, brothers, lovers or friends based on violence and corruption. They turn their backs on the thousands of innocent victims of the ruthless war between the cartels in Mexico in recent times, and in which women, children and girls are the victims among the victims, as occurs in most wars in the world.

The book "Dictadoras", by the beloved journalist from Spain Rosa Montero, addresses the stories of women in the lives of sinister characters such as Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin. She states: "Talking about some of the most known from the 20th century through the vision of their wives, lovers and daughters, and the place that women occupied in their megalomaniac projects, is being able to delve into European history from another perspective... it's like going through the back door of the dictatorships”.

Paraphrasing Montero, the book "Emma y las otras señoras del narco" gives the reader the possibility of precisely, through the stories of the women, entering through the back door into the internal life of the drug cartels. the drug.

And it gives a close-up perspective of who these drug traffickers are, showing them like never before: their insecurity complexes, their self-centeredness, their weakness masked by brutal violence. It is a book that fundamentally questions the patriarchal macho system of the drug cartels, but that spreads in all areas of life in Mexico. Perhaps that is why it has generated so much discomfort.

In this internal life, not only women of different profiles parade, even from the world of entertainment, without there being a specific pattern defined, it could be almost anyone, but also politicians, businessmen and male artists. All of them going beyond criminal business, establishing personal relationships with the leaders of the drug cartels in a clear mix that goes beyond the simple corruption link addressed in my other books such as "Los Señores del Narco" and "El Traidor". ".

It's about rapport, more solid ties that are difficult to dissolve, which is why they are even more dangerous connections.

Touch the core

What do drug dealers do when they're not dealing? Do they have a personal life? What is that life like? What are its pulsations? What moves them inside to traffic? That's how I got to touch the nucleus. I had access to direct witnesses from that world that it was necessary to know who agreed to speak with me.

I corroborated their testimonies in different ways, including thousands of pages of court documents and/or testimonies from public officials or family members, or people who directly knew the people pointed out by the witnesses in other contexts.

I have hours of recorded interviews with my witnesses, some agreed to give their names and they appear in the book, others it is not possible to reveal them to safeguard their lives.

The current criminal system in the 4T

The drama that Mexico is experiencing due to the drug cartels and the criminal system that protects them forces us to seek new angles to understand the phenomenon. Without understanding, neither as a society nor as an authority will we be able to dismantle that system. And if women are an essential part of this criminal system, it is society's job to prevent the cartels from continuing to feed on them.

In Italy, the country with the oldest structured criminal organization in the world: the Mafia, the role of women who are personally interrelated with Mafia groups has been analyzed legally and socially, in order to discourage their involvement.

Their relationship is legally sanctioned. For example, assets obtained with money from crimes are confiscated, parental rights of their children are withdrawn so that they do not remain trapped in the criminal system, and mechanisms are even sought to help them get out of said system.

Mexico is behind in discussing these issues. That may be why since it came to light, my book has caused a schism and controversy. Shaking up the harmful systems that operate in society is one of the goals of investigative journalism.

Criminal system in full swing

What has happened since the publication of the book is that, on the one hand, sectors of the system squirm at the revelations. For example, the entertainment world. But on the other hand, the system is silent and operates to create misinformation about the true content of the book.

The only way to understand the investigation is not by reading fragments of the book, but by reading all of its parts. In this way, the different layers of the discourse and reflections raised can be understood.

The criminal system is still in full swing and unpunished in Mexico, now under the political regime headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and has activated its antibodies, as has happened in my investigations in the past.

The discomfort generated by the statements of my witnesses is because they witnessed events that not only correspond to the past, but also to the present that we live in Mexico today. That is why there are those who want to direct the understanding of the book, many times without even having read it, to tabloid and sensationalist issues.

Those who do it are due to a lack of vision, indolence, or with the clear purpose of diverting the essence of social and political criticism that the data obtained during my investigation throws up, and thus help perpetuate the impunity of the criminal system that destroys Mexico.

The attention is intended to focus on one or two of the women that I point out in the book to omit the fundamental questioning of the macho, patriarchal system, of the nucleus of the drug cartels and the world of corruption that surrounds them.

Members of the Fourth Transformation

Here are the names of three members of the so-called Fourth Transformation headed by López Obrador, mentioned directly by witnesses to the events, having had relations with groups of drug traffickers .

One of them is Manuel Bartlett Diaz, current Secretary of Energy. Direct witnesses to the events, Jorge Godoy and Ramon Lira, escorts of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, revealed to me in an interview the visits that Bartlett Diaz made to the leaders of the Guadalajara Cartel when he was Secretary of the Interior in Miguel's six-year term. de la Madrid. Today this man is one of those closest to AMLO. He and his MORENA party are silent.

Félix Salgado Macedonio also appears on the scene, a senator from MORENA, a protégé of the President of the Republic, whose daughter Evelyn Salgado is the current governor of the state of Guerrero, after his candidacy was rejected by the electoral authority.

In the same houses where drug trafficker Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias La Barbie, a member of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel received women and threw parties, he received Salgado Macedonio, who, according to the witness I interviewed, was paid millionaires bribes when he was mayor of Acapulco.

His daughter, the current governor, is in turn related to another collaborator of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, an organization that continues to have power, as shown by the methamphetamine seizure made in Spain - the most important in recent history - carried out out this week.

And there is the former deputy of MORENA, the actor Sergio Mayer, who had a close relationship with La Barbie, according to my witnesses and documents from the Attorney General of the Republic. In interviews given as a result of the book, the former deputy, who now claims to be a senator, has been contradictory and ambiguous: he confirmed the accusations made about him in the FGR, and in an interview with the driver Hernán Gómez, visibly nervous, said that he considered drug dealer La Barbie as a "fascinating" and "extraordinary" character and said that he had the right to have as many friends as he wanted.

"Assuming without conceding," he said without denying their relationship: "If I had had it, I wouldn't have any problem, there's nothing illegal about it." And he added: "Anyone has the right to be friends with anyone." The MORENA party has not ruled on Mayer's statements or his relationship with La Barbie.

Why do the President and the so-called 4T have characters with this past in their ranks? Perhaps that is where AMLO's phrase of "hugs and no bullets" to the drug cartels makes more sense, with all the brutal implications that this entails and brings a nation to its knees in the face of crime.

#MeToo is born within the cartels

I support the statements made in the book about the actions of the characters mentioned within the circles of personal relationships and corruption of organized crime. I have heard voices threatening to file civil lawsuits against me and the book. Until now, at the moment that I am writing these last lines on December 16, 2021, there is no notification or summons against me, nor against the publishing house.

My book is backed up and documented and my witnesses are willing to go into details, even lurid, to explain before a judge what they saw and experienced if they were summoned to testify. The solidity of the investigation begins to fulfill one of its main objectives: women from various fields, whose lives have developed in the family and personal nuclei of drug cartels, are willing to break the silence.

Does it start a 'Me Too' movement within criminal organizations? That would break the Omerta paradigm that has been imposed on them and could shake the criminal system to its foundations. They have started to make contact with me and I am willing to listen to them. This story is just beginning.

(elm/ms)