How three drug ballads helped put a Mexican drug trafficker behind bars

Narcocorridos — a subgenre of corrido (a type of Mexican ballad) that glorify or narrate the lives of drug traffickers and organized crime figures — say that Marco Ramírez Chávez was a young student and worker, until he was lured by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). “There was no progress, I had to get involved.” He soon began to climb the ranks of the organization, becoming one of its criminal leaders in Irapuato, Guanajuato, under the alias “El Chacorta.”

Descriptions in three drug ballads have now played a key role in helping the Guanajuato Attorney General’s Office establish Ramírez Chávez’s criminal profile, resulting in an 80-year prison sentence for the 2020 kidnapping of a man in Irapuato. The body of the young man, whose first name only — Luis — has been made public, was found days later in a clandestine grave.

The newspaper Reforma reported in an article on Monday that the prosecution played the three narcocorridos in court. El Chacorta, Yo soy el Chacorta, and Equipo Chacorta, composed by Héctor Manuel Hernández (from the band El León y Su Gente), narrate Ramírez Chávez’s story as one of the cartel’s commanders in the city: “They put me in charge of a zone, / and here I am working.” In the lyrics, the composer refers to the city as “la fresa” (strawberry) — a direct reference to Irapuato, known as the strawberry capital of the world.

The lyrics also sketch a hierarchy within the organization. They make no mention of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the leader of CJNG, but do refer to a boss placed on the same level as God: “Only God and the boss will move me from here, / and with the help of my Father God, we remain in the fight.”

There are explicit references to Ricardo “Doble R” Ruiz Velazco, one of the leaders of the elite armed wing of the Jalisco cartel. In one song, the singer swears allegiance to him: “Wearing Doble R’s shirt with pride, that’s how you’ll see me”; “territory conquered, and always working for the Rs.” Hernández also refers to the cartel as “las cuatro” (the four) or “the four of Jalisco,” a nod to the initials CJNG.

A clandestine grave

The ruling, which Reforma had access to, breaks down the events of the 2020 kidnapping. The scene unfolded something like this: Paso Blanco, in northwest Irapuato, September 9. El Chacorta arrives at Luis’ home accompanied by his partner and the cartel’s local leader in Irapuato, Josefina Yosany Ramírez, known as “La Chepa,” and another woman. Ramírez Chávez forces the young man at gunpoint to get into his red sedan. That moment is the last time Luis was seen alive.

The next day, Luis’ family receives a message from the kidnappers demanding 250,000 pesos (around $14,000 at the time) in exchange for his release. The family doesn’t have that amount in cash, but they agree to hand over a truck and the deed to a house instead. They never make it to the meeting because their vehicle breaks down.

On September 25, just a few miles from Luis’ home, between Paso Blanco and El Conejo, two groups of volunteer mothers who search for the disappeared along with state authorities are looking for human remains among half-finished homes. After four days of work, they uncover 18 bags of human remains and four bodies buried across eight clandestine graves. It would later be confirmed that among the remains were those of the young man kidnapped nearly 20 days earlier.

According to the ruling described by the Mexican newspaper, witness descriptions were key in helping investigators identify Marco Ramírez Chávez by name and nickname. But the narcocorridos helped establish his affiliation with the organization led by El Mencho. In 2021, El Chacorta was also indicted for shooting another man in the head in a separate 2019 case.

43 corridos

Composer Héctor Manuel Hernández told YouTuber Leo Gallegos in 2022 that he had written over 10,000 corridos (ballads), though only about 1,000 had been recorded. In that interview, the artist described himself as a “method composer.” “I really like airsoft [guns that shoot plastic pellets]. While I was composing, I would grab a replica [weapon] and place it on the table to get into character — a replica AK, an AR, or a SCAR [types of assault rifles],” he said.

At the time, Hernández charged around 60,000 pesos (about $3,000) for a commissioned corrido. He claimed that in a single weekend he once wrote 43 of them.

The introduction of his three corridos into the trial of El Chacorta comes at a tense time for artists in the genre. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has stated that the federal government will not ban corridos that glorify criminal lifestyles, but several states have threatened economic or legal sanctions against musicians who perform them live.

The U.S. has even revoked visas for artists like Julión Álvarez, Los Alegres del Barranco, and Grupo Firme. Experts in the genre, such as historian Juan Carlos Ramírez-Pimienta, argue that these sanctions miss the root of the issue. “They say, rightly, that these songs promote violence — but the problem is that there is so much violence to be promoted,” he explained in an interview with EL PAÍS.

The sentencing of El Chacorta brings narcocorrido lyrics into a new legal context. The September arrest of Mario Alexander Gámez, alias “El Piyi,” a hitman for the Sinaloa Cartel, sparked speculation that lyrics from the genre might be used to track down drug traffickers. Luis Omar Montoya, a historian specializing in music at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), noted at the time that investigations based on such songs might be viable, but never decisive on their own.

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