It began as a coup for the Drug Enforcement Agency: In 2011, it had gotten hold of trackable cellphone data for two kingpins of the Zetas cartel. But that success turned into a weeks-long bloodbath for the people of Allende, Mexico, when the DEA shared its information with a leak-prone unit of the Mexican federal police. Years later, accounts of survivors, cartel members and government officials offer a rare chronicle of such violence.
From ProPublic/National Geographic:
"How did I know there was trouble? Because I was holding 596 kilos of cocaine for the cartel, and 40 sent a guy to take it back from me. That's something I had seen them do many times before. Every time 40 planned to kill someone in the organization, he would first make sure he had taken back their merchandise.
"He sent me a photo of himself, with drawings of frogs all over it. At the bottom of the photo he wrote, ‘Look, the damned frogs had me shot.' ‘Frogs' is their word for snitches.
"I called 40 and asked him, ‘Hey, what's this about?' He didn't answer. All he said was, ‘I need to see you. Where are you going to be later?'
"I told him I was going to be at the horse track. But I didn't go. I called a couple of my guys, and I told them to go see what was going on. After they got there, they called me and said, ‘You're screwed.' One of 40's guys was there, cursing my name because I hadn't shown up. That's when I knew I had to leave."
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