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The drug market was shared between 2 cartels, the Tijuana cartel in the north and the Gulf cartel in the south. They lived more or less side by side, like the Italian Mafia, until the Zetas came. The Zetas are former military and paramilitary soldiers, who used to work for the other cartels to do their dirty killing work. One day they decided to set up their own cartel, and that is where the massacres started. These guys have no rules at all, they just kill blindly and do not care if some innocent people get shot in their massacres. Torreon, the city where I was 3 days ago is a stronghold of the Zetas, whilst Gomez Palacio, just 10 km away in in the hands on another cartel, hence the recent killings here.

Once again I left a city in a state of fear and drove to Durango. Here I met Karla and her friends. During a common dinner, the topic of our discussion came to the recent discovery of mass graves in Durango. Seven of these graves have been found since April this year, containing at least 302 bodies. Than Carlos told me, that he had a bad experience with the cartels himself. Curious, I asked him for more details. His father was kidnapped some 5 years ago, and released only one week later after payment of a ransom, Hi did not want to go into more details, but all I know, is that his father owned a few shops before the kidnapping, and now, no more..

The next day, I heard that Thaalii, who was also with us, had the same experience! Her father got kidnapped only 3 month ago. To free him, his family had to sell their car and their house. The most astonishing: her father was not even a rich business man, but a normal employee of a company.

On top of that Carlos and Ali told me that they witnessed a gun shooting, just nearby the school where they are teaching.

Later, Karla, told me that she knows many more similar stories. In every case, the ransom was paid, and the police was not alerted.

All these terrible stories from only eight people I met.

No, this is not a mistake. Did you see the palm trees? This Eiffel tower is in Torreon