LETTER FROM ECATEPEC 61swath of Ecatepec is said to be a re-
doubt for gangs of armed robbers,
where every business establishment
and form of transport is subject to the
derecho de piso, an illegal tax imposed
by a dozen-odd local mafias— some
old-school, some newer— working un-
der the aegis of two or three major
cartels, predominantly the CJNG.
This part of the city is considered too
dangerous to visit, off-limits to out-
siders, abandoned by the police, a
“black hole,” as it was described to
me on more than one occasion. But
the next time I talked to Joaquín, he
said he could take me there safely
because he worked for the cable- car
company. Everyone knew his vehicle,
with its one glittery fender, its trunk
that wouldn’t shut, and its deeplytinted rear windows, sufficiently
opaque to obscure the pale vis-
age of a gringo. I decided to take
him up on the offer one day
in mid-September.W
e met at the Mexicable
station on the south
side of Ecatepec, the
farthest that an Uber would ven-
ture. Our driver for the day was
Joaquín’s buddy, also thirty-one,
who went by the nickname Pelón.
He wore a long T-shirt thoroughly
stained with engine grease,
equally greasy sweatpants, and
disintegrating sneakers. He had a
tattoo of the evil clown from the
movie It on one forearm, the draw-
ing skillfully done but incom-
plete. “I’m waiting for the sequel,”
he explained.
Driving into Cuauhtémoc,
Joaquín told us about a party he
went to at the house of a traf-
ficker in exotic animals, where
someone had offered to sell him
a girl of about seven or eight for
two thousand varos, or bucks.
“The girl was just sitting there,
not talking,” he said. “She was
indigenous, morenita.”
“Everyone here has a family
member who has disappeared,”
said Joaquín. His sixteen-year-old
niece went missing a few years
ago. “I hope she’s dead,” he said,
without apparent emotion. “I
don’t want to imagine her life if
she’s not.”
Joaquín pointed out a slaughter-
house and hastened to roll up his
window. There are many indus-
trial sites in Ecatepec—including
canning and bottling facilities, a
limestone mine, and a thermoelec-
tric plant—but none smell as bad
as the meat-processing facilities,
they told me. We drove by the La
Costeña factory where they pickle
the jalapeños I buy at my grocery store
in Austin. Behind the building, Joaquín
said, was a “lost world,” a makeshift
encampment of drug users and under-
age sex workers.
As we entered Ciudad Cuauhté-
moc, there were no armed men to be
seen. I spotted only one police vehi-
cle, stationed at an intersection: an
armored truck with a machine- gunTop: “Untitled,” 2015, Chimalhuacán. Bottom: “Untitled,” 2016, Ecatepec © Sonia Madrigal