Indore-based businessman Manu Gupta and his Mexican colleagues had travelled to Hong Kong between January and February 2016, ostensibly on a tourist visit. But it has come to light since, that it was a business trip. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), “Gupta was in communication and had…

In 2016, a group of men undertook a month-long journey from the Americas to Asia. Mexican nationals Jorge Ayon Peña, two others known as Francisco and Fernando embarked from Culiacán in Sinaloa to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Indore, Rajasthan, back to Tokyo, finally returning to Mexico on 21 February 2016.…

On 25 September 2018, three men were busy shopping in Kothari market in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Two were Indian nationals and the third a Mexican national. One Indian and the Mexican had had breakfast at the Hotel Marriott before the shopping trip. The trio visited five different shops until they…

Despite repeated scandals, the global cyber-surveillance industry continues to supply Mexico with more and more invasive technologies, assisted by well-connected intermediaries. Multiple journalists have been targeted by these tools, but Mexican authorities remain unconcerned. Veracruz, the state with the highest count of murdered journalists, including Regina Martínez, even used a…

Eight years after journalist Regina Martínez’s sudden death, an international consortium of 60 journalists from 25 media outlets, coordinated by Forbidden Stories, took up her unfinished investigations and tried to uncover the mystery behind her murder. This investigation is the first part of The Cartel Project, a series of five…