The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail

by Óscar Martínez

“And do you pursue the crimes even when the victims don’t?” “It’s too politicized. Our job is simply to inform the public of the law and their rights. The police are supposed to actually enforce the law. Sometimes they talk to us, sometimes they don’t. Communication is a huge problem. The cartels have infiltrated the police forces as well.” “The criminal networks are pretty well organized, then?” “Organization is one of the cartels’ strongest characteristics. They’re involved in everything: kidnapping, drug trafficking, human trafficking. We don’t even know which cartel is responsible for what. It’s impossible to identify them.” This last comment, however, I recognize as a flat lie. A few days before speaking with Tamayo, I had visited Ciudad Hidalgo, the small city on the shores of the Suchiate River that divides Guatemala and Mexico, to talk to someone from the mayor’s office. I told him that I was working on a story about female prostitutes. The official took me to a bar called Las Nenitas (The Babes), ensconced between two dirt alleyways. At about two in the afternoon, there were only two women behind the bar. Tesa, a beautiful Honduran woman, tall and dark, took our orders. She was wearing platform boots, tight pants, and a low-cut shirt. Before arriving, the official had told me that all the women who worked in Las Nenitas were prostitutes. I told Tesa, without mentioning the word trafficking, that I was interested in talking with her. She said she’d be glad to talk,...