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Police Bust Mexican Drug Gang For Recruiting Boys Via Video Games

The three victims, 14 and younger, were contacted while playing the online game Free Fire, and promised paid work.

Photo of two police members in Veracruz, Mexico

Municipal Police in Cordoba

OAXACA — Police in Mexico have intervened to rescue three minors, aged 11 to 14, from recruitment into a drug gang that had enticed them through online gaming.

A top Mexican police agency official Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, said the gang had contacted the youths in the south-central city of Oaxaca, chatting through a free-to-download game called Free Fire, which involves shooting at rivals with virtual firearms.


Calling himself "Rafael," another player of the same age, the suspected gang member offered one of the youths work "checking radio frequencies and watching out for police presence" in Monterrey, northern Mexico, reported national daily El Heraldo de México. The pay was unusually good — 8,000 pesos (almost $400) every two weeks — and the youth called two friends who also wanted to get in.

Criminals use gaming and social networks

The three boys were set to take the bait, but an anonymous Mexican intelligence agent following the exchange while also posing as youth playing Free Fire, ultimately led police to a safe house in Santa Lucía del Camino, outside Oaxaca. The three were held before their transfer to Monterrey. Authorities arrested a woman who was supposed to take them there.

Gangs recruit youth who like these game, firearms and adrenaline.

Mejía said "this is an important case for interweaving the virtual and real worlds," with criminals operating "through online games and social networks." The recruiter, he said, "pretends to be young, invites [youngsters] to private meetings early in the morning or when the parents are working, when there is no proper oversight."

He said recruiters were interested in youngsters they discerned as "interested in this type of game, in firearms and adrenaline, and gradually draw them in through communication."

screenshot of the fire fire online game

Screenshot of Free Fire

Emulator PC

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Ideas

A Brazilian Plea For Science, Religious Freedom And The Right To Samba As You Wish

An evangelic group has threatened to take legal action against a samba school because of its mix of religious iconography at the 2023 Carnival festivities. A Brazilian secular institute has a response.

Photo of Rio's carnival 2015

Rio carnival in full swing

Daniel Gontijo E Pirula

-OpEd-

SÃO PAULO — To celebrate religious diversity at 2023 carnival, the samba school Gaviões da Fiel in São Paolo combined Christian symbols with imagery from African religions — for example, Christ with Oxalá (a deity from Candomblé, an African diasporic religion).

Gaviões received a disclaimer note from the country's conservative Evangelical Parliamentary Front (FPE). In these politicians’ view, "one cannot compare Christ and Oxalá … under no circumstances", and there would only be one god, one Son, and one Holy Spirit.

Having interpreted this artistic syncretism as an immoral, vile act, the FPE is now threatening to take legal action against the samba school.

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