A Mexican journalist who covered drug trafficking has been murdered, officials told AFP on Monday, the latest casualty in a country notoriously dangerous for reporters.
The reporter, Miguel Angel Beltran, had previously worked in print media and was now covering crime-related issues on social media, according to local reports.
Beltran’s body was found on Saturday along a stretch of highway that connects the northwest state of Durango with Mazatlan, a resort hub in the neighboring state of Sinaloa, local press reported.
His death was confirmed to AFP by the Durango state prosecutor’s office.
Beltran had reported from TikTok accounts, under the handle Capo, and on Facebook, on the page La Gazzetta Durango, AFP confirmed.
In one of his last posts, on October 22, Beltran reported on the arrest of a leader of a crime gang called Cabrera Sarabia, which operates in Durango and is a rival of the powerful Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartels.
Mexico is considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, with more than 150 media workers slain since 1994, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In November 2024, photojournalist Ismael Villagomez was shot and killed in Ciudad Juarez, a city that lies on Mexico’s northern border across from El Paso, Texas. Three people were arrested over that killing.
At least five other journalists were killed in Mexico in 2023, according to Paris-based RSF.
Beltran and other murdered journalists worked in areas where drug cartels were active, and they published their work in local media or on social media, generally in precarious employment conditions.
Mexico has recorded some 480,000 homicides since December 2006, when the government deployed federal troops to fight the drug cartels.
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