Juarez Drug Cartel Victim Marisela Escobedo's Sad Story | Joe Rogan and Johann Hari

Didn't Mexico decriminalize a lot of drugs like fairly recently? Yes, they had a big Supreme Court decision. I spent a lot of time in Mexico and I You know, I think about I think about this time I spent in Mexico really often Because it was I mean I covered you know into a lot of bad places. I covered the war in the Congo I've been to Iraq. I've been to Gaza. I've never seen anything like what happened in Juarez when when I was there the you know, I think it's worth explaining so when you Like I was saying when you ban drugs then it disappear right the transfer to armed criminal gangs if you live in a housing project In the United States where five percent of the economy of that housing project is in the hands of armed criminal gangs That's gonna be a shitty frightening place to be right the place like C. Dad Juarez Which is on the border with what Mexican side of the United States border with them? It's the other side with al Paso By the time I went there it was 70 percent 7 0 percent of the economy was in the hands of these armed criminal gangs right, so I remember Going to see this guy Rosario Retta Interview people about him in Juarez, but then I went to he's in prison in the United States is in Tyler County and Rosario It's an interesting guy. So he butchered or beheaded about 70 people between the ages of 13 and 17 And we're going into the prison actually to see him and the guard said to me on the way in But obviously I can't leave you alone with him because he's like butchered all these people. I was like, oh great Thanks, and I'm about five minutes in tell her I was fucking gone. But um, Sing with Rosario talking about his life and his his story. So Rosario grew up in Laredo It's on the Texas side of the border. It's basically the same place It's in a way by Laredo on the on the Mexican side. It was very easy to cross the border at that time See grew he was growing up in the late 90s noughties I'm a Rosario was 13. So loads of the Zeta's were kind of famous drug gang at that time They still are a drug cartel how the Zeta's were created. It's an insane story Every taxpayer should know the US government decided to train an elite anti-drug force for the for the Mexican government Right like kind of Navy SEALs for the anti-drug force. They take them to Fort Bragg They spent something like 250 million dollars training them up. They go back to Mexico six months later They all defected en masse almost all of them and created a drug cartel the Zeta's great. You see your tax money. Um, so the Zeta's were this kind of Glamorous and inverted commas drug gang right operating on that part of the border Drug routes move around according to where they put policing it always gets through but it moves around They call it the balloon effect. Imagine a balloon half full of air you push down one pace the air comes up somewhere else But at that time it was going through Juarez and El Paso and Laredo and Nueva Laredo and Rossellio Says two stories about how Rossellio gets involved with the Zeta's what Rossellio says is he was basically kidnapped by them and forced to Start killing people I don't think that's true. If you look at the evidence, it's that he sort of volunteered but he's 13 So I don't hold him morally responsible for that. But either way, there's one night it all begins He's taken on the Mexican side of the border to a warehouse where they are Torturing people burning them alive He's given a gun by a guy called Miguel Trevino who later became the head of the Zeta's And he's told to shoot someone in the head and that's the moment you're in and when you're in with the Zeta's you never Get out right there. No one leaves No one leaves alive And so they begin to train him. He sent to us in 2005 He sent to a summer camp that's literally a camp of the teachers you had to behead people and do all sorts of things and he's then sent a hit him and his friends are then sent to Murder people his with his friends Jesse and Gabriel They murder huge numbers people that they were called within the Zeta's call these child soldiers the expendables Because they don't give a shit if they live or die, right? That they this one person said to me they prefer children because they don't understand death so well, right? Obviously for a solid got a bit older. He understood death better all his friends get murdered eventually He tries to get back to the US he cooperates He now lives in solitary confinement where he will live by the rest of his life because when they let him out of solitary Shortly before I met him. He was immediately stabbed in the neck and Again you think about this Insane violence that we created right when I went to Juarez. It's this bizarre thing So what that time it wasn't you were told it wasn't quite rightly it wasn't safe to stay in Juarez overnight So I would stay overnight in El Paso and I'd walk across the bridge right through through obviously of cheer passport The customs people go what the fuck are you going into Juarez but Go go in there. It's weird on the other side of the Bridge, there's this sign and it says welcome to historic downtown Juarez And it used to be a tourist site Billy Holiday got married there But um now it's just that time it was just covered with images of missing women Just everywhere because this is another really important part of what this violence doesn't make it's really important We understand this is the violence caused by the system that we uphold and we imposed on Mexico Mexicans do not want this right? So there's another story I think this was of all the stories I wrote about for chasing the screen along with one other one I can tell about if you want. This was the hardest So women in Juarez When the drug war violence starts to go through called Maricela Escobedo She was a nurse, but Maricela was incredibly hard-working So she also would do these um, what's called like wood carvings basically and she would sell them in the market on Saturdays and Sundays She had three kids a youngest daughter was called Ruby She was 14 at the time and they would work on this stall in the marketplace Every Saturday, I think maybe in Sundays as well some Sundays and one day a guy comes up to Maricela Has still called Sergio who was a young guy? He was like 21 And he's like you just had a baby. He needs a job. Maricela was kind of soft-hearted She gives him a job working on her market stall and a few months later She discovers to her horror that he's having sex with her 14 year old daughter Ruby And she's like fires him immediately and goes to the police and says you need to go and question him, right? He's 21 She's 14. This is a crime police. Don't do anything. She doesn't understand it. What why are they not investigating this? her daughter starts Running away to be with with Sergio Maricela keeps going to get her back. She keeps going to the police saying this is a crime He can't live with a 14 year old go and arrested. They won't do anything, right? She's completely puzzled by this then Ruby gets pregnant Maricela's life. She was 15 by then fuck I've got to keep her in my life. So she she keeps going to see Ruby by this time she's kind of accepted the police on with real rage that police aren't gonna do anything and one day just after the baby was born she goes to see Ruby and Sergio's there with the baby and he says them. Oh Ruby's run away with another man. She's gone. She's not coming back And Maricela's like what I left her baby. No, she hasn't done. I know she hasn't done that. I know my daughter He's like, well, she's gone So Maricela waits Christmas comes no message New Year comes no message. She starts to go to the neighborhood and hand out Leaflets with pictures of her daughter loads of women are going missing in Juarez at this time. I'll tell one minute Just saying have you seen this girl? And after a few days she gets a call from a kid called and hell Who says I'm really frightened to tell you something if you drive me out into the desert I'll tell you so she drives and hell out into the desert. He was 14 and he says Sergio murdered your daughter and he made me help him dispose of the body and he told Maricela where the body was It was actually a place where they dumped Pig carcasses from the abattoirs. She goes and she finds the body with it with her son And she goes to the police and the police finally do something and they arrest Sergio Sergio's put on trial in the witness box. He breaks down admits he did it and apologizes to Maricela and then a few weeks later, he's acquitted of all charges and Disappears and Maricela is like what the fuck is going on here? So she starts to look into this and she discovers and this is the work intersects with the drug war in a really important way That the Sergio was a member of the Zetas, right? Now if you're a member of the Zetas at that time in Juarez is different now because another drug gangs displaced them You own the state, right? And you have if they control 70% of the economy you have more money than the government, right? So the police work for them when I went to go into the Rosario He said when I would go murder people the police would would come with me. They would dispose of the body, right? I'm about Jesus. Yeah, you're we talking about this is like six years ago I remember the the the I remember it's interesting because one of the things when you're in a dangerous place When you're when you're in a dangerous place One of the things you do is you read Danger from how frightened the people around you are right because you don't know the place I was I mean, I was there with Julian Cardona who was my fixer. He's an amazing He's the Reuters correspondent where I was one of the bravest people I've ever met but It was realizing how frightened other people were for me and Julian, right? And I remember after I've been there for a few days Julian kept introducing me by that time the killings were basically all being done by the police And I was saying, you know Julian this is This is important that I meet people who've been killed by the police But I should also meet people who've been killed by the cartels more recently and he said that he just laughed and said now That's that's not how it works here And now if the cartels want to kill someone they just pay the police to do it, right? So it's this real realization All right, someone comes for you. There is nowhere for you to go, right? So Maricela refuses to accept that she lives in a country where there is no justice She decides, okay, they're not gonna solve this. I'm gonna solve this She appealed look loads of women are missing because it turns out if a bunch of criminals control the state They will just murder loads of women and get away with it, right? There are some men who just want to murder women and if they give them license to do it They'll do it. That's why so many women were missing Maricela gathers a load of those mothers She says some of them don't know where their daughters are. Some of them know their daughters are dead She's like I need your help. We're gonna find this Guy who's done this, right? So Maricela Turns herself with these women into a detective. She starts tracking Sergio all over Mexico wherever there are sightings She walks everywhere. She walks over a thousand miles, right? She walks through the desert. It becomes a media phenomenon people follow her she's like this this symbol of the loss that's happened in Mexico and Incredibly with her friend Berta Alicia Garcia who I got to know later After two years she finds Sergio she tracks him down. She goes to the police. She tells them where he is They tip him off and he disappears She's devastated. So she decides she's gonna go to the governor's mansion in Chihuahua Which the state capital She goes there and she sets up 10 outside the governor's mansion and she's like I'm not leaving here until you people go and find this man And she calls on every mother who has a daughter Who's missing or who they're afraid of for to come and join her in this fight, right? And it gets to Christmas Eve and she's preparing to Just before Christmas is on Christmas Eve. I'm gonna have this big Christmas dinner here people can join me She gives this great speech and a man walks up turns shoots her in the head in front of all the police everyone