Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the Gulf Cartel if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “JA Espinoza” from Matamoros
MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — The control that organized crime has over media outlets was once again displayed in full force this weekend in this border city as the print news outlets made no mention about the capture of one of the top leaders within the Gulf cartel nor about the raging gun battles that took place the next day.
As Breitbart Texas published on Friday, Mexican authorities arrested the leader of the Ciclones group from the Gulf cartel, one of the top leaders within the criminal organization, named Angel Eduardo “El Orejon or Ciclon 7” Rodriguez Prado.
After the arrest, authorities set up a massive deployment of federal assets with air support that lasted for more than 10 hours. However, the new leadership of the Gulf Cartel (CDG) which rules over this border area, ordered print news outlets to omit any information about the Orejon.
The front pages of the local and some national news outlets that are printed in Matamoros, left out any information about Friday’s arrest or about the large scale gun battles on Saturday. The front pages of those outlets showed other stories.
Some outlets did publish information about shootouts in other nearby cities, however, no mention about Matamoros was ever made. In addition to the silence by the media, Friday’s arrest did not go unnoticed by the citizens along the border. As reported by Breitbart Texas, the day of the arrest authorities set up a massive deployment of military forces in the city including various helicopters that flew over the city for hours ready to provide air support in case of any violence.
The relevance of the events and the impact that the cartel leader had set the internet ablaze as webpages and social media users provided information about the arrests, however, print media remained silent in their print products.
The print media had been ordered silent by members of the organized crime that rules over Matamoros. The method of controlling the news is done through a person usually within the crime beat in each news outlet that is linked to cartel members. These individuals are known as the “links”
The order was that Gulf Cartel members did not want to see this information printed. The event was fully confirmed the following day when none of the print new outlets int he city published any relevant information on their front pages nor on any of their inner pages. Any news about the cartel plaza boss Angel “Ciclon 7” Prado getting arrested or the shootouts the next day were not published.
It has been several years that the editorial control about information and events relevant to the region has been controlled at will by the members of organized crime. This has been done by the established rule that there are inherent risks for those who challenge the orders.
This is why under fear of reprisals, news outlets have stopped reporting on news about any incident that may have ties to organized crime or narco-violence.
This new case of national significance was published in all the main news outlets in Mexico, however in Matamoros it stopped being relevant when it was replaced by other headlines. Despite the significance of the arrest of one of the top criminal figures, the new leadership of the CDG continues to silence news outlets.
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