Get wise to my exercise.
How to talk like a Mexican drug lord
By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times
One thousand people are being killed each month in Mexico’s drug war. Words can hardly convey how vicious the war has become. So those involved invented some. The lingo is grim, but how else to portray such sav*ager y as beheadings and bodies c ut up and cooked in acid?
• Levanton : the kidnapping of one or more members of a rival gang or other enemy. Unlike traditional kid*nappings, the point is not ransom but to torture and kill a foe. Victims of a multiple levanton may end up fusila*dos .
• Fusilados : from the Spanish for rifle, to be executed in the style of a fir*ing squad, or with a shot to the head, known as a tiro de gracia.
• Encajuelado : Based on the word for trunk, a body dumped in the trunk of a car. This is a common method of disposing of victims of a drug hit. Often, the bodies are bound and gagged with packing tape or are encobijados , wrapped in blankets. Sometimes they are accompanied by a handwritten narcomensaje.
• Narcomensaje : A scrawled drug message, typically meant to threaten rival drug cartels or government secu*rity forces. Messages sometimes take the form of banners, known as narco*mantas , and hang from bridges or in other public places to demonstrate a gang’s audacity.
• Plaza : Not the quaint public square you see in nearly every Mexi*can town but rather any defined drug marketplace, such as a smuggling point. Much of the violence since December 2006, when President Fe*lipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels, is because of fighting among gangs over coveted plazas, or turf.
• Halcones : To guard strongholds, trafficking groups rely on street-level informants — taxi drivers, fruit ven*dors, boys — known as halcones , or falcons. Halcones provide early warn*ing of the arrival of federal police or soldiers who have been dispatched around Mexico as part of Calderon’s drug war.
• Cuerno de chivo : “Goat horn,” nickname for the AK-47 assault rifle, a favorite of cartel gunmen. The name refers to the c ur ved shape of the mag*azine. Hit men are increasingly mak*ing use of even more powerful weap*ons, including .50-caliber machine guns and 40-mm grenade launchers. Authorities also report a rise in the use of potent pistols, able to fire through body armor, that are known as mata*policias , or cop killers.
• Narco-( anything): It’s handy that narco combines with almost any noun. A little creativity yields narco*fiestas (opulent, drug-laden par ties featuring foreign dancers or big-name musical groups), narco- zoologicos (narco-zoos, collections of exotic animals that, for some reason, are collectors’ items for traffickers) and narco-candidatos (politicians reputed to be in cahoots with drug gangs). At*torneys who defend suspected capos are narco- abogados , or narco-lawyers.
Narco-policias are cops on the take.
And representing the drug war’s next generation: Narcojuniors , the well-heeled children of traffickers ac*c used of helping run the criminal en*terprises.
How to talk like a Mexican drug lord
By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times
One thousand people are being killed each month in Mexico’s drug war. Words can hardly convey how vicious the war has become. So those involved invented some. The lingo is grim, but how else to portray such sav*ager y as beheadings and bodies c ut up and cooked in acid?
• Levanton : the kidnapping of one or more members of a rival gang or other enemy. Unlike traditional kid*nappings, the point is not ransom but to torture and kill a foe. Victims of a multiple levanton may end up fusila*dos .
• Fusilados : from the Spanish for rifle, to be executed in the style of a fir*ing squad, or with a shot to the head, known as a tiro de gracia.
• Encajuelado : Based on the word for trunk, a body dumped in the trunk of a car. This is a common method of disposing of victims of a drug hit. Often, the bodies are bound and gagged with packing tape or are encobijados , wrapped in blankets. Sometimes they are accompanied by a handwritten narcomensaje.
• Narcomensaje : A scrawled drug message, typically meant to threaten rival drug cartels or government secu*rity forces. Messages sometimes take the form of banners, known as narco*mantas , and hang from bridges or in other public places to demonstrate a gang’s audacity.
• Plaza : Not the quaint public square you see in nearly every Mexi*can town but rather any defined drug marketplace, such as a smuggling point. Much of the violence since December 2006, when President Fe*lipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels, is because of fighting among gangs over coveted plazas, or turf.
• Halcones : To guard strongholds, trafficking groups rely on street-level informants — taxi drivers, fruit ven*dors, boys — known as halcones , or falcons. Halcones provide early warn*ing of the arrival of federal police or soldiers who have been dispatched around Mexico as part of Calderon’s drug war.
• Cuerno de chivo : “Goat horn,” nickname for the AK-47 assault rifle, a favorite of cartel gunmen. The name refers to the c ur ved shape of the mag*azine. Hit men are increasingly mak*ing use of even more powerful weap*ons, including .50-caliber machine guns and 40-mm grenade launchers. Authorities also report a rise in the use of potent pistols, able to fire through body armor, that are known as mata*policias , or cop killers.
• Narco-( anything): It’s handy that narco combines with almost any noun. A little creativity yields narco*fiestas (opulent, drug-laden par ties featuring foreign dancers or big-name musical groups), narco- zoologicos (narco-zoos, collections of exotic animals that, for some reason, are collectors’ items for traffickers) and narco-candidatos (politicians reputed to be in cahoots with drug gangs). At*torneys who defend suspected capos are narco- abogados , or narco-lawyers.
Narco-policias are cops on the take.
And representing the drug war’s next generation: Narcojuniors , the well-heeled children of traffickers ac*c used of helping run the criminal en*terprises.
