Journalist and author Melissa Del Bosque joins host Mark Shaw on Underworlds to discuss her book Bloodlines: How the FBI Took on Mexico's Most Violent Drug Cartel — a gripping account of how Los Zetas laundered cartel money through the Quarter Horse racing industry in Texas.

Melissa breaks down how a group of Mexican special forces, became bodyguards for the Gulf Cartel, before splintering off to form Los Zetas, the brutal cartel that rose to dominate Mexico's drug war through systematic terror, why the Quarter Horse industry was uniquely vulnerable to money laundering, and how the FBI's landmark 2013 trial of José Treviño pulled back the curtain on one of the most dangerous criminal organisations in North American history.

Melissa is co-founder of The Border Chronicle and has been reporting on the US-Mexico border since 1998. Her book Bloodlines was published in 2017.

📖 Bloodlines by Melissa Del Bosque: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Bloodlines-by-Melissa-Del-Bosque/9781786069528

🌐 The Border Chronicle: https://www.theborderchronicle.com/

Underworlds is a podcast exploring organised crime, corruption, and illicit economies around the world, hosted by Mark Shaw.

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