Michael Haskins

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Dissecting "To Beat the Devil" - Part 4 Mexican Drug Cartels



People have asked me about the Mexican part of To Beat the Devil. I spent most summers in the ‘70s, ‘80s & early ‘90s in Tijuana, Mexico, with road trips to La Paz, at the end of the Baja peninsula. I witnessed the gradual change as the drug cartels began in-fighting and Tijuana, and Baja, became the battleground between these drug gangs.

I chose Tampico, Mexico as the location because of its location to the Gulf of Mexico and it is a major port, close to Texas and has a Mexican Navy base. The corruption throughout Mexican military and politicians is well known and documented. In most cases, the Mexican Navy Special Forces have captured or killed reputed cartel bosses. It appears to be working more closely with American intelligence and DEA in the battle to stop the cartels. The head of the Mexican task force fight the cartel, working out of the Mexican president’s office, was arrested for leaking information to the cartels.

While my fictitious battle by the lake outside the city limits was totally made up, attacks as I describe have happened many times in Mexico. The things Pauly reveals about his days with the cartel are documented as fact in news stories.

The Mexican drug cartels behead more victims than Muslim terrorists. Also, more journalists are killed in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a dangerous place. So dangerous that in 2009 when I was signing Chasin’ the Wind, my friends in Tijuana told me not to come. Even today, after the once powerful local cartel leaders in Baja have been jailed or killed, they have told me not to come. I spent almost 28 summers in Tijuana and La Paz with my twin daughters. The people are wonderful, the food is great and the countryside is beautiful.

The Los Angeles Times has been running a series for years on the Mexican drug war and after moving to Key West, I kept up with it. Google Mexico Under Siege or find the stories on the Times’ website, to see for yourself.

While I made up the battle, drug czars, and Mick Murphy’s escape, the background is taken from daily facts. It is happening, worse in some cases, today. So yes, it’s fiction, based on fact. It is a major concern of Homeland Security that the cartel may use, if it isn’t already, its drug smuggling routes into the USA to sneak in terrorists.

It is also well established in the intelligence community that Iran uses Muslin terrorists for its own purposes. Think of the bombing that was supposed to kill the Saudi Ambassador in D.C. The plotters were paid by the Iranians. It’s all in the daily news and I just collected the facts and put them all together to make an interesting story.

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If you  haven't checked out the Mystery Writers Key West Fest, scheduled for June 13 & 14, you should. www.mysterywriterskeywestfest.com 

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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Some astute background, I cannot fault your logic or experience!

Unknown said...

I cannot fault your logic or experience! Good stuff.

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