REPORTER: For decades,
Mexico has been ravaged by violence from deadly drug cartels.
(GUNSHOT)
90,000 people missing and hundreds of thousands murdered.
(MACHINE-GUN FIRE)
The multi-billion-dollar industry of narco trafficking
is one of Mexico's biggest exports.
The cartels are entrenched,
with many in government and the military on the payroll.
Why do you think they let you do what you do?
(SIREN WAILS)
In the Mexican state of Sinaloa,
the city of Culiacan sits at the foot of the Sierra Madre mountains.
It's home to the Sinaloa drug cartel
and the site of some of the most fierce battles
in Mexico's drugs wars.
Violence has become a way of life here.
(SIREN WAILS)
There's just been a shooting in the middle of Culiacan.
We think it's related to cartels.
There's actually a police car behind us, and the national guard.
Yeah, they're definitely going where we're going.
The police said that that was a hit job gone wrong between cartels.
This guy had been shot in the leg,
shot in the arm and hit across the head.
He's lucky to survive.
The policeman told me this is happening every single day.
Police here are stretched, and they're also the targets.
(SIREN BLARES)
In May, the state's chief of police was killed in an ambush
by suspected cartel hitmen, known as sicarios,
and a veteran police officer from Culiacan
has just been reported missing, presumed kidnapped by the cartels.
Do you worry that you might not make it home?
The people here have very little trust in the police force.
Many believe they've been infiltrated by the cartels.
How big of an issue is corruption?
MAN: Corruption in Mexico has been an extreme problem for many decades.
Writer Ioan Grillo says
the cartels are gaining in strength and influence every year.
It used to be that the upper hand was held by the security forces -
by the police and the military,
and they could extort the bribes from the cartels.
What we've seen in the last 20 years is
some of the cartels have become much more powerful,
so that it becomes the cartels
actually bullying and controlling elements of the security forces.
(SIREN WAILS)
Across Mexico, you have many people
who are very fed up with the cartels.
We are seeing record numbers of murders.
We are seeing disappearing people, digging mass graves for people,
corrupting the country, holding the country back.
On the other hand, especially the poor neighbourhoods of Mexico,
the cartels have a massive reach.
They provide a lot of work for people,
and people refer to the cartel figures
as 'Los Valientes', or 'The Brave Ones'.
Very much a shrine to the Sinaloa cartel.
You've got "Narcos with Attitude".
You've got the "cocaine dealers" of Sinaloa.
These are all El Chapo. There he is.
Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman led the Sinaloa cartel
from a small trafficking outfit
to one of the most profitable crime syndicates in the world.
He was extradited to the United States in 2017
and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.
But the Sinaloa cartel still dominates
the North American drug market.
El Chapo was born in a small town north-east of Culiacan,
deep in the western Sierra Madre.
It's the perfect hide-out for narcos.
The mountains provide cover from prying eyes,
the crops of poppies and marijuana fuel the drug trade.
(AIRCRAFT ENGINES DRONE)
Light planes take off from makeshift airstrips,
flying contraband across the border.
This is cartel country.
And I'm heading straight into it.
So, we're about two and a half hours outside of Culiacan,
and this place is so far beyond government control.
I haven't seen police cars for about an hour.
All you see is guys like this on quad bikes with guns.
These guys are one of the most powerful cartels in the country,
and they are partially responsible
for the violence Mexico is seeing at the moment.
I'm gonna spend the night with them.
I want to know what exactly is happening.
This is some serious terrain.
(ENGINE LABOURS)
(ENGINE REVS)
Nice, helpful guys, the cartel. They're great.
(SIGHS) Oh!
This is the arse end of nowhere, isn't it?
(VEHICLE PULLS UP)
What is this place?
Do the police ever come by here, you know?
So, the police come here and you bribe them with women?
(SPEAKS INTO RADIO)
Guys like these are small but important players
in the bigger cartel network.
They grow and transport marijuana and opioids into the US.
Oh, that's a lot of weed, isn't it?
Wowsers.
How old is the little dude over there?
WOMAN: Trece. Trece.
13? That is young, isn't it, to get involved in this game?
Have you all, like, killed people with these guns?
It's still quite hard, though, isn't it?
It's like another human being, does that ever weigh on the conscience?
You know, you think about it?
Why is it so violent? How do you stop that?
(MACHINE-GUN FIRE)
What do you think of the police?
This 13-year-old's family all work for the cartel.
Is it your dad who is kind of like the boss?
Why do you think your dad sell drugs?
Do you think you could kill someone?
No. No.
You know, a lot of people get killed each year.
If you get asked to carry on the family business selling drugs,
will you say no?
I like horses.
Also dogs.
(ROOSTER CROWS)
ALL: Good morning.
It's amazing how quick they go from pretty normal dudes
to terrifying killers.
Do you consider yourselves kind of like terrorists?
A couple of days ago in Culiacan, a police officer was kidnapped.
I supposed, to me, that seemed like acts of terrorism.
You know, if you're kidnapping police...
(GUN COCKS)
(GUNSHOT)
We just got a phone call from a local crime reporter here
who's told me that the officer reported missing
a couple of days ago in Culiacan, his body has just turned up.
Hola.
Reporter Ernesto Martinez has covered the crime beat in Sinaloa
for over two decades.
He shows me where the body of 45-year-old officer
Jesus Manuel Soto was found.
That's his brain? Si.
Oh, man, really?
They've shot a police officer 65 times
and his brain is lying on the floor.
Do you think anybody will be punished for this?
(BELL CLANGS)
A few days later, the family holds the funeral.
I tried to talk to people from the family, they're all too scared.
The police don't want to talk to me
because they don't even trust each other.
There've been no official statements from police chiefs or politicians
about the murder of Jesus Manuel Soto.
Yet another murder.
Mexico is the most dangerous place to be a journalist in the world.
It's not Syria, it's not Afghanistan...
..it's Mexico.
I have left my country, ironically,
to be able to keep doing my job.
Journalist Anabel Hernandez is in hiding.
Her work exposing corruption has lead to death threats.
I published a serial of investigations
with the connections between the Sinaloa Cartel
and the top of the government of Mexico.
The cartels are terrible, of course, but they became this powerful
because the Mexican government was involved.
ALL CHANT: Presidente! Presidente!
In 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected
promising to stamp out corruption and violence.
Mexicans had a lot of hope
in this new president.
In 2020, the former Secretary of Defence,
General Salvador Cienfugeos
was arrested at Los Angeles airport by US authorities.
He was indicted on money laundering and drug trafficking charges.
The army in Mexico was not happy with that.
The current Secretary of the Defence
he ask the President to help release Cienfuegos.
The Mexican Government intervened and the US charges were dropped.
General Cienfuegos returned home a free man.
Mexican authorities then quickly exonerated him.
The fact that the Mexican government of Lopez Obrador managed to get
a major general from the United States to Mexico,
and then not charge him,
that won President Lopez Obrador massive points with the military.
It's very obvious in Mexico
that he is giving more power to this army.
Viva Mexico! Viva!
Viva Mexico. Viva!
Since he's been in power, we have this new police force
called the National Guard, which is a militarised police.
So you're actually seeing a more militarised country
but less direct attempts to stop the drug trade.
He promised to do something different
but when you see just the reality,
nothing changed.
It's just the same.
In some parts, it's worse.
I wanted to ask the Mexican government what it's doing
to fight corruption.
I met with Olga Sanchez Cordero, Mexico's Interior Minister.
How is it that so many murders can go unsolved?
A large issue is levels of impunity.
Latest figures suggest, you know, 10% of murders go to sentencing.
You recently put the National Guard in charge of the response
to cartels.
They are a militarised force.
Are you not doing exactly the same?
So why not just use the police?
I acknowledge that you inherited a very difficult situation.
I don't deny that. It's just getting worse, it seems.
More and more people are dying in record homicide rates.
The question is, you know, when will your policies see results?
Up in the mountains,
the government's policies are not working.
He wants to be a vet. What do you think is more likely?
He's going to be a vet or end up in the cartel killing people?
It's a bit depressing, though,
that he's probably going to have to go on to kill other human beings.
'Cause that...you know, that is a bit of a messed-up life.
Who really controls Mexico?
Is it the authorities or is it the cartels?
Why do you think they let you do what you do?
For the people of Mexico, it means the country is just a mess.
In north-west Sinaloa, Mirna Quinonez knows first-hand
the grief caused by the drug cartels.
When Mirna's son Roberto disappeared seven years ago,
she was determined to find him, but police refused to help.
Mirna heard rumours of bodies buried in mass graves
on the outskirts of town,
so she grabbed her shovel and a pickaxe.
Word soon spread about her search.
More mothers joined to look for their children.
Mirna's organisation, The Trackers of El Fuerte,
now has hundreds of members.
In the last six years of searching, the trackers have found 207 bodies.
Do they want justice, though?
Are they asking... They're looking for the bodies,
but are they also asking the government or the police,
"I want justice. I want to know why this happened"?
So you're saying at the moment in Mexico,
justice just isn't possible?
There are nearly 90,000 people missing in Mexico.
But three years almost to the day
after Mirna began searching for her own son Roberto, she found him.
ANABEL HERNANDEZ: I think it's a time to reflect
how many people in different parts of the world
are also part of this problem that is killing people in Mexico.
I think it's time. Time to stop a little bit.
Think about how many banks help to laundry that dirty money.
How many decent people consume these drugs.
But they are not thinking that every gram of cocaine,
every gram of heroin trafficked by these cartels that they consume,
they are giving more money to buy more bullets,
to kill more people in Mexico.
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation