Mexican Pop Singers Falling Victim to Murder

ALISON STEWART, host:

Someone is killing Mexican singers. At least a dozen have died under mysterious circumstances in the past year. Most recently, a Mexican singer Sergio Gomez was found strangled and beaten the day after he performed in front of 20,000 fans with his band K-Paz de la Sierra. Coincidence connections or cocaine-related murders - it's a new story we wish we reported first is another addition of Ripped Off…

(Soundbite of "Law and Order" transition sound)

…from the Headlines. Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post Mexico City bureau chief, joins us from Mexico City.

Manuel, how are you?

Mr. MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA (Mexico City Bureau Chief, Washington Post): I'm good. Thanks, Alison.

STEWART: So you wrote about these pop star deaths and these possible connection to drug cartels. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about who's being killed? Are they major artists signed to major labels?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: These are big name artists. Sergio Gomez from K-Paz de la Sierra was a superstar in Mexican music. He's nominated for a Grammy posthumously. He had an international following. He actually started his music career in Chicago, but he became a star in Mexico, and his fans were numerous.

STEWART: So someone like that, how might they end up tied up with a drug cartel?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Yeah, that's the really dark aspect of this story. Anyone who you talk to in the Mexican music industry tells you that the narcotraficantes, the drug cartels, you know, who are engaged in this very violent drug war in Mexico over the last two years, they're just attracted to the music industry. They like the scene. They like the vibe. They like the energy. And they also have, and in many cases, historical connections with the musicians.

Remember, the drug traffickers and the musicians are often coming from the same places: poor villages in mountains in Mexico where there isn't access to a lot of money. And if a young musician wants to get started, one of the fastest ways to hit the big time is to hook up with a drug trafficker, because he's got the money.

STEWART: And it might be somebody that the singer knew back in the day, back in the hood, basically.

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Yeah. You know, all of these killings are a mystery in Mexico. None of them has been solved, and they're the subject of great speculation. But one thing is very clear: Almost everyone of these murders that has taken place over the last year, they have the hallmarks of drug trafficker killings.

STEWART: Okay. What are those? Explain that to me.

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Yeah, there's - it's sort of an ugly tale, you know?

STEWART: That's okay.

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: There's often kidnappings that are done in very sophisticated ways. Then, there is often mutilation of the victim, burning their faces. Sergio Gomez, who was a handsome guy and popular with the ladies in Mexico, his face was burned multiple times. And a lot of people here in Mexico looked at that and said, well, that's potentially a message from the narcos, right? Pretty boy, you're not pretty anymore.

It's chilling to listen to the details of these killings, but they fit a pattern that we have seen over the last two years in Mexico of drug cartel hit men who feel absolute impunity because very, very few murders in Mexico are ever solved.

STEWART: Well, let's put that in perspective. How many murders are likely associated with these narco - say it for me again?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Narcotraficantes.

STEWART: Narcotraficantes. Is my bad high school Spanish, here. One newspaper counted 2,544 drug-related murders through December 5th of 2007, up more than 300 from the year before. So my question is are these musicians falling into what's a bigger pattern, or do you think there's something unique about the deaths of these musicians which may be attached to these cartels?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: I think that if you would talk to anybody who follows the violence in Mexico right now - and I would count myself among that number - I would say that almost all segments of Mexican society are being affected by the violence that is swirling around the drug world.

Personally, I've written stories about journalists who have been murdered and kidnapped. That's become a huge problem over the last year. Police, municipal officials, mayors - it almost cuts across Mexican society from poor to rich, from private sector to public sector. Now, why musicians? The same reason that other people are being killed in Mexico. There are entanglements. And…

STEWART: Mm-hmm. Personal entanglements?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Sure, a lot of personal entanglements. Nacrotraficantes are often funding bands, according to anybody in the music industry who you talk to - in other words actually giving the seed money for a band to get started, to get publicity, to get a record cut. And in return for that, are frequently, then, expecting a cut of the money.

STEWART: Mm-hmm.

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Well, money, when it's changing hands, often can lead to misunderstandings and out-and-out deceptions. And the way that drug cartels deal with those sorts of problems is not by filing lawsuits. It's by killing people. Then, there's also romantic entanglements. The closer a band is with that world, the more likely that a band member might, say, catch the eye of a powerful drug lord's girlfriend or wife or daughter. And all of these sorts of entanglements can create, you know, very big problems.

But one thing that's really interesting about Sergio Gomez - and I should stress that nobody knows for sure why he was killed. But Sergio Gomez didn't sing a brand of music that was specifically talking about drug traffickers.

There is a brand of music in Mexico called a narcocorido, and that narcocorido is a song that celebrates one drug lord, might make fun of another drug lord. And there have been instance of singers of these narcocoridos being killed shortly after cutting a record that might have offended a particular drug lord. Sergio Gomez was at the other end of the scale. He played romantic ballads, bouncy dance music. There was nothing about him, about his music that said drug lord, that said drug world. But that doesn't mean that he and others who were killed this year may not have come in contact with drug lords.

STEWART: Now Manuel, you mentioned that the - these cartels are intertwined with the music industry, that many times they provide the seed money for some of these artists. What about the industry as a whole? Is it just a look-the-other-way kind of a situation, or is there a call to purge the industry of these people who are violent?

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: Well, you know, this particular killing, I think, has led some in the industry to look in the mirror a bit. It really rocked the Mexican music world in a way that some of the other killings haven't. And people who I've talked to in the industry have began to sort of have that conversation. You know, is this what we should be doing? Are these the kind of arrangements that we want to be having?

But they're so engrained in the industry, that most people who - most musicians, most music promoters, concert promoters, they take it almost as a given. And, you know, removing that element from Mexican music would be very hard right now, most of them say. It's just that deeply entwined. But, again, I should say it's not just music, you know? Drug traffickers and their money are tied up in a lot of aspects of Mexican society.

There are cities in Mexico, small towns, where it's clear that there is no functioning government, that the government itself is controlled completely by drug cartels. And we're not talking about just tiny little towns. So the Mexican music industry might just be a metaphor for what is happening in Mexico. We just happen to notice it because these are well-known figures.

STEWART: Manuel Roig-Franzia is a Mexico City bureau chief for the Washington Post.

Manuel, thank you for sharing your reporting.

Mr. ROIG-FRANZIA: It was my pleasure.

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