Over the past five years, the Mexican drug war has claimed the lives of an estimated 40,000 civilians and drug traffickers. British journalist Ioan Grillo describes it as "a bloodbath that has shocked the world."
In his new book, El Narco, Grillo takes a close look at the Mexican drug trade, starting with the term "el narco," which has come to represent the vast, often faceless criminal network of drug smugglers who cast a murderous shadow over the entire country.
"People struggle to really understand what this force is," Grillo tells NPR's Ari Shapiro. "You talk about 'el narco' being behind 30 bodies on the street and 'el narco' threatening politicians, but who really are these people, and what really are they?"
He says when he first arrived in Mexico in 2001, traffickers used gangbangers to carry out their assassinations — but not anymore.
"Now they have fully fledged militias with AK-47s, [rocket-propelled grenades]," Grillo says, "and they have become something very fearsome and very dangerous within Mexico."
'El Narco' As Boss
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