Cartels can intimidate with a click of a mouse

Web videos taunt rivals, often use bloody footage
By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 11, 2008

TIJUANA – The drug war being waged in Mexican cities has found its way onto the Internet.

The week after a fierce battle Jan. 16 between gunmen of the Arellano Félix drug cartel and Mexican police and soldiers, an anonymous video appeared on the Web site YouTube.

The video used organizational charts from the Baja California state judicial authorities in Tijuana to identify allegedly corrupt agents by name and photograph and blame them for the shootout.

The so-called narco-corridos, Mexican folk ballads describing and in some instances celebrating drug cartels or their hired killers, were among the first drug-related offerings to migrate to the Web. They had been played on radio stations and performed in nightclubs for years, but then “narco-videos” turned up on YouTube, MySpace and other sites.