Borderland Beat (BB) is an English language news blog that reports on the
Mexican Drug War. The blog was started in 2009 by an anonymous individual using the pseudonym Buggs. BB's reporters are mostly based in the U.S. and Mexico. Their main focus is to provide English coverage of the drug war in Mexico, by creating analysis and research material about drug cartels, criminal figures, and the effects on the ongoing drug war, as well as translating Spanish articles into English.
Origins
Borderland Beat was started in 2009 by "Buggs" (Alex Marentes), a retired
Albuquerque Police Department
The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is the largest police force in the state, with approximately 1,000 sworn officers in 2022.
In addition to serving as the primary p ...
officer and former active duty and reserve
U.S. Marine
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through com ...
.
Buggs' intention was to report about the Mexican Drug War to U.S. readers. Buggs began translating Mexican drug cartel news articles from Spanish to English since mid-2008 but was using his personal blog as a platform. Realizing the dangers of reporting on his personal blog, he created Borderland Beat and hosted it on
Blogger
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
, a platform owned by Google. Buggs came up with the name of the blog because "borderland" refers to a geographical space or zone around a territorial border, in this case the U.S.-Mexico border. Buggs was born in the
El Paso–Juárez
El Paso–Juárez, also known as Juárez–El Paso, the Borderplex or Paso del Norte, is a transborder agglomeration, on the border between Mexico and the United States. The region is centered on two large cities: Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexic ...
border area and Borderland Beat initially started by covering drug cartel violence in this area.
The word "beat" stands for a specific territory that law enforcement operate in. Once the blog was launched, Buggs created his pen name to protect his identity; only a few people in his circle knew his real identity.
History and content
Borderland Beat posts news about the
Mexican Drug War on a daily basis since its creation. The project is run by volunteer reporters based in the U.S. and Mexico, and their main objective is to inform the English-speaking world about drug cartel violence. Borderland Beat mostly translated Spanish-language drug cartel news into English. Borderland Beat also develops their research by interviewing people in Mexico and doing their own analysis.
They sometimes work in collaboration with other media outlets and think tanks (such as
Small Wars Journal
The ''Small Wars Journal'' (''SWJ'') is an online magazine focusing on intrastate conflict. Aside from its online magazine, ''SWJ'' hosts an accompanying blog and the Small Wars Council discussion board. Other site features include an online refer ...
and
InSight Crime
InSight Crime is a non-profit journalism and investigative organization specialized in organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. The organization has offices in Washington, D.C., and Medellín, Colombia.
InSight Crime has received funds ...
) by sharing their news articles for references and by allowing them to partially or fully republish their material.
Although not initially trained in journalism, Buggs created Borderland Beat out of a "necessity to inform" readers about the drug violence in Mexico, considering the censorship by traditional media.
Borderland Beat claims that none of the reporters met face-to-face and only maintained contact through the platform and via email. To protect the identities, all of the Borderland Beat reporters conceal their identities and other personal information. Some posts are sometimes passed down through intermediaries to protect their integrity. "They could be journalists, cops, politicians, maybe even cartel members themselves," Buggs said in an interview.
In addition, several reporters have passed through Borderland Beat's editorial board over the years, including some that "disappeared" from the online community without prior notice, like former Borderland Beat reporters "Iliana" and "Rise Machiavelli". Borderland Beat stated that they do not know if they are dead or alive. The most active contributor throughout Borderland Beat's history was "Chivis Martinez", a female reporter based in Mexico. She initially covered cartel violence in
Coahuila
Coahuila (), formally Coahuila de Zaragoza (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza), is one of the 32 states of Mexico.
Coahuila borders the Mexican states of N ...
and eventually in 2013, she took over the everyday management and operation of the blog.
The first article published by Borderland Beat was titled "Los Capos" (English: The Drug Kingpins), which included the
list of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords
This is a list of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords as published by Mexican federal authorities on 23 March 2009. According to a ''BBC Mundo'' Mexico report, the 37 drug lords "have jeopardized México national security." As of 8 January 2016, ...
. The article included the names of the wanted fugitives, their aliases and bounties, and the cartels they were working: the
Sinaloa Cartel
The Sinaloa Cartel ( es, link=no, Cártel de Sinaloa), also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in il ...
,
Tijuana Cartel
The Tijuana Cartel (Spanish: ''Cártel de Tijuana'') or Arellano-Félix-Organization (Spanish: ''Organización Arellano Félix'', AFO) is a Mexican drug cartel based in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Founded by the Arellano-Félix family, the ...
,
Gulf Cartel,
Los Zetas
Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate, regarded as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscri ...
,
La Familia Michoacana
La Familia Michoacana, (English: ''The Michoacán Family'') La Familia (English: ''The Family''), or LFM is a Mexican drug cartel and organized crime syndicate based in the Mexican state of Michoacán. They are known to produce large amounts o ...
,
Juárez Cartel
The Juárez Cartel (Spanish: ''Cártel de Juárez''), also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, across the Mexico—U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. The cartel is one of ...
and the
Beltrán Leyva Organization.
Over the years, Borderland Beat increased in readership and popularity, including with U.S. and Mexican law enforcement. As readers began to contribute in the articles' comments sections, Borderland Beat created a forum for users to share drug cartel news and updates. Borderland Beat has reporters and informants based in Mexico who provided "boots on the ground" for many of the news articles published by the blog. Several of them were based in various geographical locations, which facilitated information gathering on distinct drug cartels that operated in these respective areas.
In the 2010s, Borderland Beat started collaborating with journalists and crime reporters based in Mexico to give them a safer platform to share organized crime news.
In Mexico, journalists avoided writing about drug cartel violence because they feared retribution from organized crime groups, and they used Borderland Beat to publish articles that they could not report on the mainstream Mexican media. Borderland Beat never had a physical office where drug cartels could carry out an attack, another factor that made it an attractive platform for crime reporters.
In March 2010, Borderland Beat wrote an article titled "War on Information in Mexico", which covered violence against journalists and the rise of social media as a platform for news sharing. The following year, Borderland Beat published an article titled "Mexican Drug Cartel Kills Blogger" that highlighted the growing dangers of
citizen journalists
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
in Mexico's ongoing drug war. As bloggers started becoming a target by organized crime groups in Mexico, several international media outlets interviewed some of the BB reporters to share their experiences. ''
The Daily Dot
''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown ...
'' and
MSNBC
MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
interviewed former Borderland Beat reporter "Overmex" and ''
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' interviewed "Gerardo".
In 2011, Buggs decided to reveal his identity to confront the logistics of maintaining Borderland Beat and to help spread Borderland Beat's popularity. Buggs argued that by revealing his identity, this move would help media outlets identify the point of contact within Borderland Beat and avoid pursuing other reporters and try to uncover their identities. In November of that year, Buggs did his first interview with the Texas-based news outlet
KRGV News. During the interview, Buggs discussed Borderland Beat's mission and violence against reporters. "
orderland Beatwas intended to fill a voice that the media wasn't reporting,” Buggs said. "A lot of the narco cartels were targeting the media."
Between December 2009 and June 2022, Borderland Beat has had 243,705,858 visits.
It it averages approximately 50,000 readers a day. Borderland Beat also had a Facebook account with 100,000 followers, but this page was closed in February 2020 for reportedly "violating community standards".
Borderland Beat responded to the closure by stating that someone had reported their Facebook page and that they had never received a warning of any supposed violations. They claimed that they rarely uploaded gore videos and that those that they did were usually covered by Facebook with a warning notice. Borderland Beat posted articles from their main site on Facebook but also shared raw information that was sent to them from anonymous users. "The staff on Facebook reviewed the page and they felt the whole page violated the community standards and chose to just delete the whole page permanently. I find this move might have an ulterior motive", BB said in a statement.
Borderland Beat was the first media outlet to confirm the May 2020 death of
Sinaloa Cartel
The Sinaloa Cartel ( es, link=no, Cártel de Sinaloa), also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in il ...
drug lord
José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa ("El Chino Ántrax"), who had been in supervised released at his home in
San Diego, California
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
, but escaped to his hometown of
Culiacán, Sinaloa.
BB broke the story after one of their sources confirmed to them that Chino Ántrax was killed in a shootout in Culiacán along with his sister Ada Jimena Aréchiga Gamboa and brother-in-law Juan Garcia Espinoza.
Lawsuit
In October 2020, BB announced that they were shutting down their website in response to a lawsuit issued against them by a Mexican drug lord. The drug lord in question was Armando Valencia Cornelio, former leader of the
Milenio Cartel
The Milenio Cartel, or Cártel de los Valencia (Valencia family Cartel), was a Mexican criminal organization based in Michoacán. It relocated to Jalisco in the early 2000s. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel was born from the splintering of t ...
, who sued BB through the
for publishing a story about him that included personal information.
BB reporter "MX" published an article in June 2020 giving an overview of his criminal career and release from U.S. prison earlier that year. The article stated that Valencia Cornelio was moving to
Atherton, California
Atherton () is an List of municipalities in California, incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 7,188 as of 2020.
Atherton is known for its wealth; in 1990 and 2019, Athe ...
, and had
lymphoma cancer.
The story was originally published by the Mexican newspaper ''
Reforma'' and translated and republished by BB. Multiple other media outlets in Mexico also circulated the story and were eventually included in Valencia Cornelio's lawsuit.
In efforts to conceal his identity, Valencia Cornelio was granted a "
John Doe
John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often ...
" plaintiff identity after his attorney Jeffrey Mendelman filed a motion.
In the lawsuit, Valencia Cornelio's defense complained that BB violated Blogger's privacy policy by publishing personal information about him. The BB report included an old California driver's license (CDL) that Valencia Cornelio once owned. That CDL included the "...driver’s license number, address, sex, height, weight, date of birth and signature of
alencia Cornelio"
The CDL was originally published by the Mexican newspaper
''El Norte'' in 2003, the year Valencia Cornelio was arrested in Mexico.
BB closed down their main website but said that they would continue their efforts on a smaller scale through their Twitter account. They said they were hoping to relaunch in January 2021.
BB relaunched in January 2021 as projected. They reiterated their commitment to reporting on Mexican drug cartels, and said they would keep their readers informed on the progression of the lawsuit.
Borderland Beat has since resumed reporting and their website is back online.
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
*{{Cite book, last=Marentes, first=Alex, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_kalywEACAAJ, title=Borderland Beat: Reporting On the Mexican Cartel Drug War, publisher=Lulu, year=2019, isbn=978-1686892448
External links
Borderland Beat
Mexican drug war
Mexican blogs
Internet properties established in 2009
Mexican news websites
Anonymous bloggers