[six-one-niner]

All of our family in Tijuana and Tecate took this seriously and stayed at home.

Most people in Mexico today believe the local “malandros de la colonia” much more than anything on the news or what the government tells them about such things. Every colonia has their local “malandros” or small time criminals. They are usually the sons of local families on the block, the black sheeps of their family. They are small-time thieves, addicted to drugs or alcohol and don’t belong to any specific cartel but are like free agents. Cartel operatives will hire them from time to time for jobs like keeping an eye out for someone, to take a message to someone, to accompany them on an operation when they need more people, etc. In exchange they get some drugs, some money and something very important they have learned how to commercialize – intel on things going down in the area. In turn they share that intel with other families and friends in their colonia which is why the colonias put up with them.

It’s a weird relationship but any colonia in Tijuana today that doesn’t have at least 1 or 2 malandro types living close by as loyal informants of what is going on will feel exposed and vulnerable. Especially in lower economic class colonias where the police don’t normally patrol at night.

It’s probably hard to comprehend for many of you up here in the states where things are much more black and white, you befriend the good guys and stay far away from the bad guys. In Mexico we have learned we can’t trust the government to know what is going on and to keep us safe so we use these local informants from families we know and who we watched grow up to keep us informed as to what is really going on. We depend on them just like the cops use them for information. Sometimes they will lie to the cops but they always tell the families on their block what is really going on.

My sister for example has a godson who dropped out from school and was given 3 years in prison for stealing cars but since he got out just smokes weed and sells what he doesn’t smoke. He stops by her house once in awhile and tells her what and who to watch out for. In return she makes him tacos for lunch and gives him some burritos and a little money to take with him.

The informants in the colonias of Tijuana last week were telling everybody they better take this threat seriously. We were planning on driving down to Tijuana for my brother-in-laws birthday party on Friday but my sister warned us not to go.

She gave me that warning days before the first car was set on fire. Some of you may think the CNGJ just used the informants to scare people but that would not be smart. They need to protect their reputation of making credible threats or nobody believe them next time.

We believe either the government negotiate with them to give them something they wanted and just don’t tell anybody about it or may have captured and released a local cartel boss in exchange for no more violence.

You just don’t know in Mexico but they rarely tell you what is really going on but do watch for and pay attention when you see the people of the colonias staying home. That’s a positive sign that something is happening and you should probably stay home too.

She called me this morning and said it’s safe again to cross now. I along with most people there trust their “malandro” intel sources 1000x more than anything I hear or read in the press or from the authorities, and you should pay attention too.