8. Cartel Boss- II

What I witnessed was a system of control that operated quietly, efficiently, and with a level of organisation that is impossible to comprehend unless you have lived inside it. Outsiders imagine chaos, impulsivity, and violence without structure. But the truth is far more unsettling: the most dangerous systems are the ones that run smoothly, silently, and without resistance.

I don’t believe my situation should be dismissed simply because the system considers it “too difficult.” That is, in many ways, the very message the CJNG relies on. They exploit the gaps between jurisdictions, the blind spots between agencies, the silence between neighbours. They know the mechanisms meant to protect civilians are full of holes, and until governments repair those holes, organised crime will continue to slip through them.

For months, an extraordinary amount of energy was spent terrorising me. And now, standing on the other side of it, I find I cannot even report what happened. The loopholes are so wide that the harm simply disappears through them. At times it feels as though I am doing the cartel’s work for them — trying to convince my own governments that the system they built does not function in the places where it is most needed.

They are skilled, disciplined, and deliberate. They rarely make mistakes. And that is the point: without evidence — evidence they ensured I could never safely gather — the system defaults to disbelief. It reinforces the very message the intimidation was designed to send.

The non‑consensual recording was the clearest example. Images taken without my permission, distributed without my knowledge. I knew how capable they were. I knew those files would never surface. The only way they could be “found” would be if the people responsible chose to expose themselves — which they never would. That is the Catch‑22 at the heart of coercion: the harm is real, but the proof is engineered to vanish.

There is a part of this story that still makes my stomach turn. The recordings did not happen by accident. They were not the result of one man’s poor judgment or a moment of recklessness. They were ordered. Planned. Coordinated. Someone with authority decided that drugging me was acceptable. Someone decided that recording me without my consent was acceptable. Someone decided that distributing those images was acceptable. These were not spontaneous acts. They were instructions handed down through a chain of command.

A delivery arrived at exactly the wrong moment — a 950ml bottle of Pacifico beer, out of place, out of context, its lid clearly tampered with. It had been collected from the Corona shop that once sat beside Comex on the highway, right at the entrance to Lo de Marcos. I recognised the man who brought it; he was cartel. I had seen him around town. And I could see, in the way he avoided my eyes, that he did not want to be part of it. His reluctance was unmistakable. He was following orders that went far beyond anything he had ever signed up for. That alone tells you something about the nature of the person who gave those orders. And it didn’t happen just once — it happened twice.

Because the man at the top — the one who authorised this — is not a leader. He is not a protector. He is not someone deserving of respect. He is a danger to any community he inhabits. A man who can orchestrate the drugging and non‑consensual recording of another human being has crossed a moral line that is not crossed only once. Men like that repeat themselves. They escalate. They rely on silence, fear, and the belief that no one will ever speak their name out loud.

People who engage in the non‑consensual distribution of intimate images often show the same patterns: a hunger for control, a need to dominate, a willingness to humiliate, and a complete absence of empathy. Research shows these behaviours are rarely isolated. They are part of a pattern, a method, a way of exerting power. And when someone like that holds authority in a small community, no woman — and no man — is truly safe.

I was not young. I was not naïve. I had already survived years of coercion in a violent relationship. I had built a tolerance for fear that no one should ever have to develop. And even then, I was terrified to speak. If this had happened to someone younger, someone without the same survival instincts, someone who was local — the damage could be irreparable. In a place like that, she would be too frightened to tell anyone, even her own family. I know this because I was too scared to tell anyone while I was still inside Mexico.

What frightened me most was not only what happened to me, but what it revealed about the danger facing the women who live there permanently. Local women do not have the luxury of distance or escape. Their lives, their families, their reputations, their safety — all of it is tied to the same streets, the same neighbours, the same unspoken rules. When a man with power crosses a boundary, they cannot simply leave. They cannot outrun the consequences. They cannot report it without risking everything.

And that is exactly what men like him count on.

In a small community, silence is not just common — it is enforced. Not always by threats, but by the weight of social expectation, by the fear of retaliation, by the knowledge that the wrong word to the wrong person can change the course of a woman’s life. A young woman who is targeted in a place like that is trapped in a way outsiders rarely understand. She cannot speak without risking her safety. She cannot confide in her family without endangering them. She cannot seek help because the very people she would turn to may be connected to the man who harmed her.

That is the danger.

Not just the act itself, but the structure around it — the silence, the fear, the hierarchy, the knowledge that certain men can do what they want and walk away untouched.

I survived because I was older, because I had already learned how to read danger, because I eventually had the ability to leave. But a younger woman — a teenager, a new mother, a girl who has never lived anywhere else — she would have no such protection. She would be isolated before she even realised what was happening. And by the time she understood the danger she was in, it might already be too late.

This is what keeps me awake at night: the knowledge that the man who ordered what happened to me is still there. That he still holds influence. That he still moves through that community with the confidence of someone who has never been held accountable. And that the women around him — the ones who smile politely, who keep their heads down, who know exactly what he is capable of — are living with a danger they cannot name.

I escaped. Many of them cannot.

And that is why I speak now. Not because I am brave, but because I am free. Because he cannot reach me anymore. Because someone has to say out loud what so many women in that community already know but cannot risk voicing.

Because the truth, once spoken, becomes harder to bury.

And if you want to know who he is — he is the man who lurks in the shadows of Lo de Marcos, a cartel boss, the one people whisper about but never confront. A man who has already shown he is dangerous to women. A man who should never be allowed to hold power over any community, anywhere.

What unsettles me most is not knowing exactly who he is. I don’t know his name. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t know whether I ever met him directly or only felt the consequences of his decisions. But I know this: he abused the power entrusted to him — within his own organisation and across the community as a whole. He used that power in ways that betray every moral boundary.

He is around. He is present. And from everything I witnessed, he is not going anywhere.

He may have children. He may have a wife. He may present himself as a man of authority or respect. But men who operate like this always have secrets — and they rely on fear, silence, and the loyalty of others to keep those secrets buried. What he ordered, what he authorised, what he allowed to happen, is not something a man like that does only once. It is a pattern. A method. A way of exerting control.

And the truth is simple: if he has done it before, he will do it again.

Maybe by writing this, it will help other victims come forward — now, or years from now. It is difficult knowing that the man who instigated this is heavily protected. But there is only so much a community can absorb before the truth begins to leak through the cracks. I cannot advise anyone on what they should do. The choice would always have to be theirs. And in a place like that, every conversation could be overheard, every message intercepted. Decisions must be made quickly, or not at all. I understand that world. I lived inside it.

What happened to me was not just immoral — it was illegal. Non‑consensual recording of intimate acts is a crime in Mexico. The law recognises it as a violation of sexual intimacy. It is illegal to film, photograph, or record any intimate or sexual act without the explicit consent of everyone involved. Sharing or distributing those images — what is now widely understood as digital violence — is also a crime. Penalties can include imprisonment and fines, and in some cases the sentence increases if the perpetrator had a personal or romantic connection to the victim.

Mexico’s legal reforms, known collectively as the Ley Olimpia, were created to address exactly this kind of harm. These reforms criminalise digital violence and the violation of sexual privacy. Under Article 199 Octies of the Federal Penal Code, producing or disseminating intimate content without consent is a punishable offence. Sentences can range from three to six years in prison, along with substantial fines. The law applies regardless of gender and covers content shared through social media, messaging apps, email, or any digital or printed medium.

But laws on paper do not always translate into protection in practice.

To report a crime like this, a victim must appear in person at the Ministerio Público. They must speak openly about what happened. They must trust that the information will be handled safely. They must hope that the people listening are not connected to the man who harmed them. And they must do all of this quickly, often within hours, before any physical or digital evidence disappears.

That is the reality.

Victims have rights — the right to be informed, the right to be heard, the right to follow the case. But rights mean little when fear is the currency of survival. And in Mexico, digital‑violence laws vary slightly by state, even though federal reforms like the Olimpia Law exist to address these crimes.

For many women, the law is not the barrier.

The danger is.

I know why victims stay silent. I know why they hesitate. I know why they whisper instead of speak. I know because I lived it. I know because I was too scared to tell anyone while I was still inside Mexico. And I know that for many women — especially those who cannot leave — silence is not a choice. It is a survival strategy.

If you are reading this and something similar has happened to you, I want you to know this: your fear makes sense. Your silence makes sense. None of this is your fault. You are not alone. And you have nothing to be ashamed of. Hold your head high. Stand in your own strength. The shame belongs to the people who caused the harm — never to the person who survived it.

This is one of the reasons I returned to Mexico. I needed to face the truth of what happened without carrying the weight of someone else’s wrongdoing. I needed to stand on the same ground where the harm occurred and remind myself that I had done nothing wrong. That the violation was theirs, not mine. That the shame was theirs, not mine. And that reclaiming my voice was the only way to take back what they tried to steal.