Video: Interview with Journalist Anabel Hernandez, Author of Narcoland

Anabel Hernández has been described as one of the most courageous journalists in Mexico. In 2010, she published a groundbreaking book linking top Mexican governmental officials to the world’s most powerful drug cartels. She received so many death threats that the National Human Rights Commission assigned her two full-time bodyguards. Despite the danger, she continued to report. In 2012, she received the Golden Pen of Freedom award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.

Her own father was kidnapped and murdered 13 years ago. Her book on the Mexican drug wars, “Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords And Their Godfathers,” has just been translated into English. “What I found in official documents and by testimonies is that the secretary of public security, Genaro García Luna, was the most powerful chief of police in the government of Felipe Calderón. He was really involved with the drug cartels, with the Sinaloa Cartel. He was in the payroll as the same, as the most important chief of the police of the federal police,” Hernández said. “So these guys not just protect the Sinaloa Cartel, they also help them traffic drugs and money in the most important airports in Mexico.”

Originally published by Democracy Now