Mexico cartel violence is flooding your phone right now, and you can't tell what's real. The videos of burning neighborhoods, the armed convoys through Puerto Vallarta. Some of it is AI-generated, designed for clicks. Some of it isn't. Figuring out which is which matters more than your travel insurance will.

El Mencho built his criminal empire from a marijuana plantation in Michoacan. He's dead now, and the celebrations are premature. What comes next is a vacuum, and vacuums get filled violently. Dr. Flores grew up connected to this. His family left Michoacan because of cartel violence. He still has relatives who've been kidnapped. When he says this is everyday reality for Mexican nationals, not Hollywood dramatization, he's speaking from something closer than most academics can claim.

The problem was never El Mencho. It was everything that made El Mencho possible: corruption, poverty, and a generation of young men with no other path. Remove the person, leave the conditions, and you get the same result with a different name. That's what makes this moment more complicated than your travel app suggests.

Topics: Mexico cartel violence, Puerto Vallarta safety, El Mencho death, cartel power vacuum, AI disinformation Mexico

GUEST: Dr. Jerry Flores | University of Toronto

Originally aired on 2026-02-23