On Shifting Ground

Take an extraordinary journey through the criminal underworld of the Mexican drug cartels and the dark heart of the US-Mexican drug wars. Los Zetas, the infamous Mexican drug cartel, has taken gang brutality to unprecedented levels. United States and Mexican law enforcement agencies accuse Los Zetas of hundreds of deaths and laundering millions of dollars.

As blood has spilled on both sides of the US-Mexican border, the cartels have increasingly turned to children as their foot soldiers - for trafficking, kidnapping, and even murder. Journalist Dan Slater has spent years researching this phenomena as it has played out in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and just across the border in its sister city, Laredo, Texas - border towns that are a prime battleground for control of lucrative US drug smuggling routes.

Sharing insights from his book, "Wolf Boys", Slater will respond to the questions: Who are the casualties when cartels go to war? Why did the cartels begin this sinister recruitment of children, and how did two American teens get caught up in the violence? What can be done to break this vicious cycle?

Speaker Dan Slater is author of Wolf Boys.

The discussion is moderated by Andrew Becker, Reporter, The Center for Investigative Reporting.

For more information about this event please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/event-calendar/event/1632

Direct download: 10_05_16_Dan_Slater.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:49pm PDT

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