Forbidden stories. The Cartel project.
Forbidden Stories
“You killed the messenger but you won’t kill the message”
Given the perils of her profession, Martínez led a very private home life. Her doors were always locked and she seldom invited anyone into her modest three-room house in downtown Xalapa.
Every Saturday afternoon, she would purchase handmade tortillas from the same local vendor who delivered them to her door, along with her favorite drinking yogurt, Yakult, from another vendor.
The vendor would announce her arrival at Martínez’s house with loud shouts of “Yakult! Yakult!” Usually, this was the signal for Martínez to make her appearance, but on the afternoon of April 28, there was no response from inside the house. This was so out of the ordinary that it alarmed a neighbor, who noticed that her front door was ajar and called the police. The two officers that arrived found Martínez’s beaten body on the bathroom floor. It appeared she had been there since the early hours of the morning.
The scene was gruesome. The journalist, who weighed a mere 54kg, had been ambushed in the bathroom. She was thrown against a wall, brutally beaten with iron bars, and strangled with a cleaning cloth. When she tried to resist, she was bitten and her head was forced into the toilet.
Forensic experts observed bruises on her face, right eye, jaw, collarbone, chest, back, and arms. She had broken ribs, a fractured windpipe, and two missing teeth.
Lilia Saúl (OCCRP), Verónica Espinosa (Proceso), Nathan Jaccard (OCCRP)/The Cartel Project – December 6, 2020
About “The Cartel Project”
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Since 2000, 119 journalists have been killed in Mexico, making it the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In response, 60 journalists from 25 international media outlets have united to continue the work of their fallen Mexican colleagues.
This unprecedented collaboration is known as the “Cartel Project”. The global network of investigative journalists at Forbidden Stories is coordinating the initiative, aiming to carry on the work of journalists who have been threatened, censored, or killed. Over the course of 10 months, and across 18 countries, the Cartel Project journalists have jointly investigated Mexican drug cartels, their ties to political authorities, and their global connections.
The team reopened the investigation into the murder of Regina Martínez, a journalist for the magazine Proceso. Her death in 2012 highlighted the impunity surrounding crimes against the Mexican press. Eight years after her murder, the team continued her investigations into the links between politicians and drug traffickers. They discovered that Martínez was on the brink of revealing significant information about the fate of thousands of people who had mysteriously disappeared in Veracruz. They also gathered exclusive testimonies revealing how local authorities sabotaged the investigation into her death and hastily covered up the case by imprisoning a scapegoat without any concrete evidence.
Forbidden Stories’ journalists worldwide have sought out the accomplices of Mexico’s criminal organizations and exposed their connections. In China and India, they tracked the cartels’ supply chains to the suppliers of chemicals used to produce fentanyl, one of the deadliest drugs in the United States. In Europe, they investigated the increasing involvement of Mexican chemists in illegal methamphetamine labs in the Netherlands and Belgium. They also delved into the opaque activities of cybersecurity companies providing Mexico with intrusive technologies used against troublesome journalists. Additionally, they obtained unpublished documents related to arms sales in Mexico, revealing that companies in Germany, Belgium, and Italy are selling weapons and ammunition worth hundreds of millions of euros to Mexican states known for their collusion with criminal groups and their devastating human rights records.
The Cartel Project was officially launched in Paris following five months of research conducted by the Forbidden Stories team, in collaboration with our partners.
The collaborative research took a total of 10 months to complete.
Known as the “Cartel Project”, this series of five investigations began to be published simultaneously by 25 media outlets globally starting from December 6, 2020. Through this coordinated release of their articles, the members of the “Cartel Project” are sending a powerful message to those who oppose the press: “You may have killed the messenger, but you can’t kill the message.”
Forbidden Stories
Btf. S.S.
Media partners: Le Monde, France TV, Radio France, The Star, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Proceso, OCCRP, Le Soir, Knack, South China Morning Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, NDR, Die Zeit, Lede, Haaretz, TheMarker, IRPI, Daraj, Proceso, El Pais, Prensa, Expresso, Radio Télévision Suisse, SVT, De Volkskrant
The five investigations of the Cartel Project are available in English, Spanish, and French:
– Revealed: The buried truth of assassinated journalist Regina Martínez
– Spying on Mexican journalists: A look into the profitable market of cyber-surveillance
– Mexican Cartels: “The Asian Connection”
– Breaking Bad in Europe: Mexican “cooks” serving Dutch gangs
– An Ocean of Guns: Mexican Journalists Caught in the Crossfire of the International Arms Trade
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