Cartel Babies: Encyclopedia of Knowledge grows out of decades of reading, observation, and concern. Its foundation is not my imagination alone, but a broad body of open-source material and lived context.
The research behind these modules draws from four main pillars:
• Public reporting and investigative journalism on Mexican cartels, drug routes, corruption, and state response, including long-form articles, documentaries, and reputable news outlets.
• Academic work on Mexican history, narco-economics, policing, organized crime, and the social impacts of prohibition and drug policy.
• Nonfiction books and testimonies by journalists, former officials, and citizens who have written about life in cartel-impacted regions.
• On-the-ground observation, photographs, and conversations in México over many years, reflecting daily life: roads, markets, rural communities, security presence, and the quiet ways people adapt and endure.
I chose to make my home in Culiacán, Sinaloa—not in an expatriate enclave or tourist corridor—because I wanted to live inside a traditional Mexican city shaped by local families, streets, and daily life. I keep my circle small and spend most of my time writing, intentionally avoiding an English-language bubble so that my perspective remains grounded in the culture around me rather than a transplanted version of the country I left.
Out of respect for privacy and safety, individual names, precise locations, and identifying details are altered or withheld. The intention is not to expose specific people or operations, but to observe patterns—the environments, pressures, and adaptations that shape life within and around cartel-impacted regions.
My understanding of México is therefore not academic alone. Over years of living and traveling in cartel-impacted regions, I have spoken with residents and workers navigating these realities daily and experienced environments where organized crime is not abstract but visibly present—where firearms are openly carried, gunfire can interrupt ordinary days and nights, and carjackings, kidnappings, extortion, and targeted killings are part of the ambient risk. Businesses sometimes close after threats, arson, or social-media warnings that customers’ safety may be in danger if they continue to patronize certain locations, and in some areas schools and other community spaces are attacked to pressure residents to move, depressing property values so territory can be reclaimed. Communities adapt to conditions that exist alongside everyday family and working life, developing unspoken rules that outsiders often fail to recognize.
In many areas, multiple layers of visible authority—national, state, and municipal security forces—coexist with criminal influence that blends into civilian life. Those involved rarely appear distinguishable from ordinary citizens, making boundaries between safety and risk difficult to perceive from the outside. These experiences shaped my understanding of how social behavior adjusts when formal authority and informal power operate simultaneously
During a rental dispute in Culiacán, I unknowingly confronted a man with apparent cartel ties while attempting to recover a deposit from an informal lease agreement. The meeting quickly revealed dynamics I had not understood beforehand, and leaving safely felt less like resolution than education—a reminder of how easily ordinary situations can cross unseen lines.
A few moments over the years illustrated these realities more clearly than statistics ever could.
One night, while cycling home from the gym, I heard gunfire from a nearby field and nearly collided with a man dressed entirely in black, gun in hand, sprinting toward a waiting vehicle. The following day’s news reported killings elsewhere in the city, leaving the incident suspended between explanation and uncertainty.
During a major operation to capture the son of a cartel leader, helicopter and ground gunfire echoed within roughly five hundred meters of my home. Streets emptied, businesses closed, and the city entered a silence that lasted days—an experience that offered only a faint glimpse of conditions many residents endure repeatedly over a lifetime.
I have also witnessed targeted violence at close range, including a daytime killing at a nearby restaurant that unfolded in seconds before life gradually resumed around the absence it left behind.
Friends and people close to them in Culiacán have experienced carjackings, kidnappings, assaults, extortion, and loss. While I spend much of my time writing indoors as a visible outsider, those around me do not have that distance. Their stories—and their resilience—shape my understanding far more than any single event I personally experienced.
These observations do not claim expertise; they provide perspective. The aim of this work is to translate publicly visible patterns into an ethical narrative framework, helping readers better understand the human, social, and environmental realities behind the headlines.