When you think of a “cartel assassin” you’d probably picture something like Antonio Banderas at the two banditos that stand alongside him in Desperado. Handsome men who wield dangerous weapons, but are even more dangerous heartbreakers.
Turns out, we are way off on that.
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Andrew Chesnut is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and he is an expert in Mexican drug cartels. Moreover, he is an expert on the assassins that the cartels use to do their killing.
In a new interview, Chesnut reveals that in the last several years the cartels have shifted their assassin hiring to women rather than men. He stated, “They are ideal killers; young, beautiful and reckless. By keeping a low profile they avoid suspicion where men doing the same job would quickly find themselves in trouble.”
We’ll catch up with you, El Chapo. In the meantime, taking notes… #Narcos pic.twitter.com/hy4jnU269S
— Narcos (@NarcosNetflix) January 20, 2017
These “femme fatales” are known as “Las Flakas” (Skinny Girls).” They are young, beautiful women who train to be deadly killers that can seamlessly shift from inconspicuous to stealthy-murderer at the drop of a hat.
Chesnut who is a leading expert specifically on La Santa Muerte (Saint Death, also known as La Flaca), a scythe-wielding patroness to drug traffickers, reveals, “The Flakas come into the work through a series of different routes. Many come in through the traditional path of low-level lookout work for the cartel, while others arrive through prostitution, birth into cartel families, or are recruited during short spells in prison.”
He continues, “These girls are all active on social media, and in seeing images of the drug traffickers’ lifestyles, they naturally want a piece of it themselves.”
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The addiction to bragging about their exploits on sites like Facebook and Instagram frequently becomes their downfall.
One girl, Joselyn Niño, who was an assassin for the Gulf Cartel and was extremely active on social media, was murdered by another female assassin, La Gladys of the Zetas. Gladys slaughtered Joselyn, then cut up her body into pieces and stuffed it into a cooler. She remains at large to this day.
Speaking about that gruesome incident, Chesnut said, “Joselyn came to a grisly end because she made herself famous over social media, gloating over her achievements. These girls know that they have to keep a low profile for their work, but for many the temptation to post on Instagram and Twitter is too great and they end up making themselves targets.”
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[H/T: New York Post]
