Narcocorridos have been a popular means to immortalize drug trafficking organizations and their leaders in Mexico. This genre also known as durangense, norteña, or grupera originated in
small towns in northern states, and its lyrics often glorify the drug trade and drug
traffickers. One of the most popular subjects of this popular form of ballad has been Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, who has become a legendary figure because of his two bold escapes from Mexican prisons. Guzmán Loera escaped from the Puente Grande Penitentiary in 2001, was recaptured in 2014, escaped again in 2015 and taken back into custody in 2016.
These types of ballads were also popular during the height of Colombian control of the drug trade, as evidenced by this narco corrido about Pablo Escobar, leader of the
Medellín Cartel, who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the Colombian military in 1993. This corrido glorifies Escobar.
Not to be outdone, a corrido also was created to celebrate the Honduran drug trafficking gang Los Cachiros. We published an article about the rise and fall of Los Cachiros in this week's edition of NotiCen.
Here are some excerpts:
Los Cachiros” did not take long to jump from stealing cattle to
becoming one of Honduras top narco families––an immensely wealthy crime
élite that, among other major-scale activities, supplied drugs to none
other than Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and his Sinaloa cartel.
The Honduran group, headed by four members of the Rivera Maradiaga
family––top leader Javier Eriberto (“Don Javier”), brothers Devis Leonel
and Santos Isidro, and sister Maira Lizeth––grew during just over a
decade, roughly between 2003-2015, into an organization that controlled
most of the US-bound drug conveyances by air.
The group's downfall began in n September of 2013, when the US Department of the Treasury singled them out
as a dangerous drug-trafficking organization operating mainly in the
departments of Atlántida, Colón, and Gracias a Dios, on the northern
Caribbean coast of Honduras, the latter bordering Nicaragua. This narcocorrido pays tribute to Los Cachiros.
