Narcos are killers, not heroic Robin Hoods

I’d like to take acclaimed film actor and ridiculed crime writer Sean Penn to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, which until recently suffered the highest homicide rate of any city on the planet.

I’d like him to meet the families of the thousands of victims murdered by maras, narco-mafias tied to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drug cartel.

That’s the syndicate headed by Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán. And Chapo is the drug lord whose recent Rolling Stone “interview” with Penn gives you the impression that narco-kingpins are just amiable, up-from-their-bootstraps folks working hard to supply gringos with muscle relaxers.

In reality they’re bloodthirsty monsters — and they’re the main reason San Pedro Sula has for the past decade been one of the largest sources of Central American migrants trekking to the United States.

To read the remainder of this article, go to:

http://wlrn.org/post/sean-penns-chapo-blunder-distorts-our-view-drug-lords-and-their-migrant-victims

This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Narcos are killers, not heroic Robin Hoods."