Warning: graphic content A bloody war between rival Mexican
drug gangs has spilled onto YouTube where two competing cartels
"taunt each other with blood-soaked slideshows and films
of their murder victims", Reuters reports.
The war between north eastern Mexico's "Gulf Cartel"
- with its private army "Los
Zetas", led by Osiel Cardenas, and "traffickers
based in the western state of Sinaloa" headed by Joaquin
'El Chapo' Guzman - last year claimed more than 2,000 victims.
Mexican president Felipe Calderon responded by dispatching troops
to several states to restore order, although the killing appears
to continue unabated, if the video evidence is anything to go by.
Indeed, Reuters notes that on YouTube "one popular video
shows a man being shot in the head" while a "stomach-churning
series of photos shows another execution victim, his missing face
a mangled mess of flesh".
According to the news agency, in one YouTube post, a user "offers
about $4,500 to anyone who can show proof of having killed members
of The Zetas, 'via photo, video or presenting the body'."
Much of the material makes reference to a popular narco corrido
ballad called "To My Enemies"; sung by Valentin Elizalde
and "widely seen as a musical attack on The Zetas".
Elizade was shot dead last year after "reportedly performing
the song at a concert in Gulf Cartel territory".
One pretty
typical example (NSFW, graphic content) of the Mexican drug
cartel video genre, entitled "To my Enemies - I killed them",
shows photos of an execution scene (seen here) in which the killers
have left a written warning on the floor declaring: "This
message is for you Chapo Guzman". The comments include predictably
partisan exchanges of insults between rival gang members.
Jose Luis Manjarrez, a spokesman for Mexico's attorney general's
office, told Reuters that "some of the people who abuse each
other on YouTube seem to have insider knowledge of the drug gangs".
He added: "The messages give the impression that members
of organised crime are participating. We can't rule out, but neither
can we be totally sure, that this is being used as a form of communication
by organised crime."
YouTube, meanwhile, insisted it "does not allow videos showing
dangerous or illegal acts".
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