Narco lives means narco-wives and narco-tombs

Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel and Arturo Beltrán Leyva, known as Mexico’s “Boss of Bosses”, were rival drug dealers and mortal enemies, but in death they lie side by side in the lap of luxury.

Their home is Jardines De Humaya, a cemetery in the city of Culiacán, the capital and largest city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa. The city is also the capitol of the region’s lucrative drug trade, but even narco-lords die, often much sooner than the rest of us, and the Jardines De Humaya serves as the eternal resting place for many of them. As one might expect, it is utterly over-the-top.

The two and three story tall stucco buildings that line the wide leafy avenues of the cemetery are in fact tombs, though they look more like condos. Many are whitewashed, others are painted cheery pastels; sky blue, sunshine yellow, ocher, with large crosses atop gilded cupolas. The place looks more like a dreamy Mediterranean villa than a graveyard. Inside the tombs it is just as lavish. There are windows, air conditioning, couches, giant portraits, ivory statues, Persian rugs, party balloons, children’s toys and stereo systems. In some are models of the dead drug lord’s favorite cars and guns. A few have phone lines. “The tomb of a drug pilot is actually adorned with crystal planes!” exclaims one Mexican newspaper article.

GRAVE MARKERS, MEMORIALS AND BURIAL VAULTS

The narco-tombs are part of a broader narco-mania sweeping the country. As revolted as Mexicans are with the brutal drug killings, the lavish drug life has swooned many. The way of this life has been broadcast via music known as narcocorrido, the Mexican drug ballad. The music is a danceable accordion-based polka that dates back to traditional Mexican ballads from the 1930s, but the lyrics more resemble American gangster rap, referring to murder, drug smuggling and government corruption. One of the first narcocorrido artists was an LA Mexican immigrant named Rosalino Sanchez, or simply, Chalino. Through the 1980s, he wrote songs about immigrants he met in seedy LA bars, many of whom came from drug-infested parts of northwestern Mexico. Chalino put these stories to music, recorded them and sold cassettes by the thousands. The tapes made their way back to Mexico too, where Chalino became something of a legend, known also as El Pelavacas (Cow Skin Peeler), El Indio (The Indian) and Mi Compa (My Friend).

But he was not everyone’s friend, in 1992 after a concert in Culiacán, Chalino was murdered. He was 31. Death only enhanced his fame, sparking a wave of narcocorrido imitators known as Chalinillos. Groups sprouted up all across the country, bands like Los Morros Del Norte, Grupo Exterminador, Revolucion Norteña and El Bandido. Many bands achieved success in Mexico and the US, but numerous musicians were murdered. The Mexican government’s attempts to ban narcocorrido music have met with little success.

THE RICH HISTORY OF DEATH IN MEXICAN ART

Another narco-trend is the narco-wife. Across Sinaloa, where good employment opportunities for females are few and far between and often based on beauty, the narco lifestyle is appealing. Attractive young women, and even girls still in school, are chatted up, snatched up and sometimes literally even kidnapped at gunpoint by drug lords. They show up at Sinaloa beauty pageants, looking to lure girls with their glam. Once a narco-wife, life can be easy, reports a recent Mexican newspaper article: “Landing a prominent drug trafficker means entering a world of untold riches—luxury mansions, SUVs, endless spa sessions and a closet full of the priciest labels on the planet…[women] laze in beauty salons, draped in designer gear, getting Swarovski crystals glued onto their fingernails.” But it’s not all glitter and gold, the narco-wife life sometimes means murder, too. A few years back a druglord’s former lover was found dead in the trunk of a car with Z’s, insignia of a rival drug gang, slashed across her belly, butt and breasts.

The narco life was recently documented in a film called “El Velador”, or The Night Watchman, a raw look into the violent narco world, told via a man who overlooks Jardines De Humaya. In one eerie scene the night watchman calmly describes the cemetery. “There are a lot of shoot outs,” he says. “They throw parties at night. They bring their bands and shoot their guns.”