Blood Trade: Memphis and the Mexican Drug War
A federal trial in Memphis connects a local crime to the international drug trade.
The money that drug users spend in your community may be helping Mexican cartels pay their employees, bribe officials, buy weapons, and hire people to torture and kill rivals.
Daniel Connolly's Blood Trade series for the Memphis Commericial-Appeal runs in the Mexico City-based newspaper Excelsior.
This morning I opened up a copy of The Commercial Appeal and read the story of how gunmen had slaughtered the entire family of Melquisedet Angulo.
After we visited the chapel of Saint Death, (see previous blog post) we stopped to eat at a nearby restaurant.
We started our Sunday morning searching for a chapel where people worship Santa Muerte, or Saint Death. The Catholic Church is dominant in Mexico and doesn’t recognize this practice.
We’re working on a project that involves print and video, and my colleague Alan Spearman is looking for some dramatic images that we can use in the video.
This is the story of Craig Petties, who authorities say lived in Mexico for years and played a crucial role as wholesaler for the Beltran Leyva cartel, shipping tons of cocaine and marijuana to...
When the little girl saw the children move into the house nearby, she was excited.
Craig Petties' January 2008 arrest in central Mexico was one of a series of setbacks for the Beltran Leyva cartel, the Mexican criminal organization he's accused of working with.
Queretaro drug treatment patient Daniel Maccise fights his addiction.
A video on drug kingpin Craig Petties, Queretaro, Mexico and drug culture, featuring the voices of drug treatment clinic director Jose Guillermo del Hoyo and drug prevention official Aitor Juaristi.
This was our first day of on-the-ground reporting in Queretaro.
I’m writing from Memphis now, making final preparations to go to Mexico to report on drug trafficking links to the South.
Imagine a violent Mexican drug cartel that’s paying massive bribes to everybody, including the country’s top anti-drug official.
How the drug business works and Memphis' role as a major player.
They found Marcus Turner in a ditch in Olive Branch, naked and shot to death.
Grantee
Daniel Connolly is a staff reporter for The Commercial Appeal, the leading daily newspaper in Memphis.
A Memphis native, Connolly was a Fulbright fellow in Germany in 2001-2002 and completed...