Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

by Johann Hari

Here’s where the stories converge again. In both versions, the ranch was a typical Zeta workspace. There were about thirty people tied up. On one side, “they put them in an oil drum and they just burn them burn them burn them and there’s just ashes left.” On the other side, they were being “cut to pieces.” The Zetas usually torture members of other gangs, or anyone who irks them, to find out “safe houses, routes, who they work for . . . About what they do, who they working for, what is he doing?” before the killing starts. After they are dead, “they burn the bodies by [making] guiso [the Spanish word for stew]—throw ’em in there . . . and poke at the body until it dissolves.” This is where Rosalio carried