For nearly two decades, the journalist Miroslava Breach documented cartel crimes and political corruption that most residents of Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara region would discuss only in whispers. Then she was killed.
The nexus between drug traffickers and politicians, often called “narcopolitics,” is an especially risky subject for journalists. And yet Breach and Mayorga showed in painstaking detail how cartel leaders were setting up candidates for local elections. After a statewide outcry, thewas forced to pull two candidates, one of whom was Adán and Crispín Salazar’s nephew, Juan Miguel Salazar Ochoa, also known as Juanito. He had been running to become mayor of Chínipas.
The murders of Breach and Valdez and the exile of Mayorga had a chilling effect on colleagues left behind. Marcela Turati, one of the country’s most renowned investigative journalists and editors, told me that it felt as though journalism itself was dying in Mexico. One inhabitant of the house, it turned out, was a university student with close ties to the Salazar family named Wilbert Jaciel Vega Villa. He had disappeared around the time that Breach was murdered, but Corral and the police seized what he’d left behind, including seven cell phones and a laptop. On the laptop were audio recordings of Breach, Mayorga, and Piñera, thespokesperson, including the recording in which Breach made clear to Piñera that she wouldn’t be intimidated.
In advance of the proceedings, the state had produced a video summarizing what the prosecutor would call a “complete, clear, responsible, and results-based investigation.” The video showed workers in lab coats analyzing cartridges under microscopes, investigators scrutinizing a wall of surveillance screens, and police officers holding assault rifles and marching in formation. Among the things that the state had learned from all this diligence was that El Larry hadn’t pulled the trigger.
And now, in court, Schultz and other officials in Corral’s party—officials whose cartel ties Breach had lambasted—were key witnesses in a prosecution that could, if successful, relieve top narcos, and themselves, of responsibility for her death. Although making recordings of courtroom proceedings is generally forbidden in the state of Chihuahua, a skeptical reporter in attendance nonetheless hit record on her phone.
Members of the collective, sharing a detailed account of their work for the first time, told me that from the beginning they operated as if the bunker were under surveillance by the cartels, the government, or both. A chart in the living room covered with colored Post-its of clues and suspects was positioned to be hidden fast, should strangers arrive at the door. Code names were used for critical actors, such as the Salazars.
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