Crime

In Mexico’s Cartel Country, a Murderer Who Kills Murderers Tells His Story

We sit at a bare table in the kitchen on the second floor. The tabletop is scored and oil-stained, as if machinery or heavy weapons often are served there. In one corner sits a shrine with small statues of the saints, Holy Judas among them. A hand-carved jaguar mask hangs on the walls. I notice that the hit man has seated himself at the table in such a way that he can see out both of the room’s windows at once. The curtains are open and the view looks out on the street below the safe house. A car approaching from either direction would be visible a long way off.

The hit man tells me in Spanish to call him Capache.

“Is that your real name?” I say.

“That is what you can call me,” Capache says.

The word translates as “trap” or “trapper.” That is what you can call me.

Capache was once a sicario for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which recently eclipsed the Sinaloa Cartel—Chapo Guzman’s old outfit—as Mexico’s largest criminal syndicate. Then, about two years ago, Capache switched sides to oppose CJNG and its allies. He currently serves with an autodefensa [self-defense] force that has taken the law into its own hands in the name of combating political corruption and organized crime.