Musicians and Guatemalan drug kingpins

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The mainstream Guatemalan newspaper La Prensa Libre dropped a bombshell over the weekend that was picked up by many Mexican newspapers today. The paper reported that Guatemala’s top organized crime families routinely hire top Mexican grupera and norteño music groups to play at private events such as birthday parties, paying $100,000 to $200,000 per ‘concert.’ Two huge names in Mexican norteño music are mentioned, including one group now based in California.

But none of the reports today contained responses from the artists mentioned in the stories. The Prensa Libre story is also remarkable in that it gives the names of the three top alleged crime ‘cartel’ families in Guatemala, ‘the Lorenzanas, the Mendozas and the Berganzas,’ something the Guatemalan media has done only rarely in the past.

-- Héctor Tobar in Mexico City