On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, journalist and author Noah Hurowitz joins Federalist Political Editor John Daniel Davidson to discuss his book “El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Infamous Drug Lord.”
“El Chapo’s rise coincided with all of these big changes. In the ’80s, with the advent of cocaine, there’s just more money than ever because you can make a lot more money trafficking cocaine than marijuana and the ability to corrupt entire volumes at the Mexican state,” Hurowitz said.
Corruption in the drug smuggling industry, Hurowitz explained, is “institutionalized” in the Mexican government.
“In Mexico, there’s certainly cops who are more or less dirty, but in law enforcement, the way that I found that it typically works is that someone higher up gets paid and they pay people below them extra to look the other way or even to go to sometimes escort drug shipments,” Hurowitz said.
“The reason that the drug trade generates so much profit is because it’s illegal. Because it’s a black market. And the reason that the government in Mexico could have a certain degree of control over it was they had control over virtually every aspect of business in Mexico, but this was even easier because you know if you stepped out of line, they could just whack you. And that was done, you know, with pretty much the understanding of the U.S.,” he said.
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