David Marcial Pérez

It’s the big threat. A cheap, white powder — 50 times more powerful than heroin — which kills more than 70,000 people each year in the United States and countless others across the rest of the Western Hemisphere. EL PAÍS, in a long-term investigation that spanned two continents and included interviews with anti-drug czars in the U.S. and China, visited the clandestine laboratories in Sinaloa, where fentanyl is manufactured. In the vicinity of these Mexican labs, addicts serve as guinea pigs for drug traffickers. This newspaper has gathered testimonies about how this lethal substance crosses the border to the north and spreads like a plague through the streets of the most powerful country in the world. The trafficking of fentanyl is part of a global network with one foot in China, which the White House has declared war on

At the largest border crossing in the country, the memory of the recent deaths of 40 migrants — who were killed during a fire in a detention center — is more painful than the new security measures being implemented by the U.S. government

In Ciudad Juárez, hundreds of migrants, especially Venezuelans, are waiting to cross and surrender to the border police, encouraged by many others who have already done it. Their fate: a legal limbo awaiting deportation trials

Mexican drug traffickers account for seven of the top 10 names on U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of priority fugitives

The Salvadoran president has appointed two U.S. crypto investors to lead the country’s National Bitcoin Office, as the IMF issues more warnings about the country’s so-called volcano bonds

Two former inmates talk to EL PAÍS about the terrors they saw while imprisoned in the country’s jails, which are at breaking point due to Bukele’s controversial crackdown on gangs

The Salvadoran president’s fierce war on gangs has quelled rampant violence and gained him unprecedented popularity while exacting a heavy toll on rights and freedoms

The prison transfer came the same day El Salvador’s congress voted to approve yet another extension of emergency rules that allow police to round up suspected members of street gangs

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes is the leader of the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Despite being the most wanted criminal in North America, with millions of dollars in rewards hanging over his head, both the Mexican and US governments have failed to track him down

The family of the small child says he has just two weeks left to live if he does not receive life-saving surgery

San Miguel Totolapan, in the state of Guerrero, is routinely rocked by violence due to its location at the heart of a drug production and transit hub

Mike Vigil, ex-head of International Operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, spoke to EL PAÍS about the capture of one of the world’s most notorious drug lords

Seven people were arrested for the shooting on Playa del Carmen’s busy pedestrian walkway

Dangerous journeys by road are becoming increasingly common due to heightened controls on both sides of the US-Mexico border

The death toll has risen to 53 after two victims died in hospital. Another 14 people remain in a serious condition after being rescued from the abandoned truck

The massacre perpetrated by the 18-year-old in Uvalde has once again put a spotlight on the lax gun regulations in the southern US state

Using testimony from witnesses and authorities, EL PAÍS retraced the events of the Texas school shooting that ended with 19 students and two teachers dead

Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with his counterpart Alejandro Giammattei on the first stop of a tour of Central America focused on migration challenges

The jazz legend moved to Cuernavaca in 1978 to attempt to treat himself for a terminal illness. After a mysterious operation, he died a few months later

The heart of the Mexican Caribbean has been recording up a string of killings and shootings, while business owners in the region say organized crime groups are in charge

The recent string of killings in the Caribbean has sounded alarm bells in the US, where authorities have issued new travel alerts for “violence and criminal activity”

EL PAÍS has seen declassified files from the DFS agency, which kept tabs on the Nobel laureate starting in the late 1960s, when he was at his most politically active

During the Dirty War, the Mexican police and army executed farmers, teachers, activists and students, and dropped their bodies out of planes. Half a century on, these crimes continue to go unpunished

Héctor Luis “El Güero” Palma Salazar, a longtime associate of infamous crime boss El Chapo, may soon walk free. He has several unsettled scores that are already troubling the authorities

The prestigious quarterly has selected 25 writers for its second list of the best authors under the age of 35, who are breaking geographical and linguistic paradigms

Afflicted by drug violence, this mining town in the central state of Zacatecas leads national polls for citizens’ lack of confidence in the safety of their surroundings