In a Cemetery Dominated by Narcos, 'Even in Death They Live the Good Life' Robert Beckhusen - Wired
go to original October 22, 2012

Javier Valdez, coordinator of the Rio Doce daily in Sinaloa, guided Univision Investiga on an exclusive tour of the Jardines de Humaya cemetery, a place dotted with mausoleums as big as small houses where Sinaloa's drug traffickers go to rest for eternity. (UnivisionNoticias)

If mansions are a way for bosses to try and outdo each other in life, then tombs are a means to carry over the competition into death.

Months before Heriberto Lazcano was killed by the Mexican marines, reports circulated that the Zetas boss had constructed a grand modernist tomb for himself in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo. Since his death — and the theft of his body from a funeral home by a gang of armed men — it's been rumored that Lazcano may one day end up at the tomb.

Generations of Sinaloa Cartel gangsters are buried at the Jardines del Humaya cemetery in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. Some tombs are built out of gold, ivory and bullet-resistant glass; and feature amenities such as stereo systems and electricity.

Elyssa Pachico, a drug-war analyst at Latin America monitoring group InSight, wrote that the tombs are an expression of excess, "which the cartels have adopted — in terms of violence, weapons and materialism — to survive in a crowded marketplace."

Read more at Wired

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