Public Relations, Narco Style: YouTube Is a Mexican Drug Cartel's Best Friend Karla Zabludovsky - Newsweek
go to original January 14, 2014

El Cártel del Golfo y Los Zetas reparten roscas de Reyes en Tamaulipas (LosNarcoVideo)

“Who giveth food to all flesh, for his mercy endureth forever.”

– Psalm 136:25

And so it comes to pass that the drug cartels give and endure, with little mercy and a lot of help from YouTube.

In a video that has been circulating on the web since Tuesday, January 7 members of the Gulf Cartel, one of the largest in Mexico, are shown handing out cakes traditionally eaten by Catholics during the week leading up to Epiphany. They visit what appear to be schools, hospitals, nursing homes and impoverished neighborhoods in northeastern Tamaulipas state, giving away the colorful, sugary treat to residents who at times look eager, and at other times apprehensive.

“We take care of our people and always help,” reads a caption embedded in the video, albeit with spelling errors. Shaky and out of focus, the video appears to have been shot with a handheld camera and edited at home. In the opening scene, six boys smile nervously as they hold two-foot-wide cakes, shaped like elongated donuts with red, white and green embellishments – the colors of the Mexican flag.

While President Enrique Peña Nieto focuses his efforts on – and channels international attention toward – Mexico’s healthy economy and his signature education, tax and energy overhauls, criminal organizations are tightening their grip on vast regions of the country and showcasing their triumphs on increasingly public platforms, say analysts such as Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz, a security expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

The viral video, they say, is the latest weapon in the less violent but still devastating side of the drug war: narco public relations.

Read the rest at Newsweek

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!